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How To Tailor Your Fundraising Message To Different Supporters
- 1 day ago
- 9 min read
You have written your fundraising story, explained why your charity matters to you and set up your fundraising page. Now you need people to read it and, hopefully, support you. One of the easiest mistakes at this stage is to send exactly the same fundraising message to everyone you know.
Your closest friend, someone you work with, a member of your running club and a person who follows you on social media may all be potential supporters, but they know you in very different ways. You do not need a completely different fundraising story for each of them. Your story stays the same, but you can change which parts you emphasise, how much explanation you provide and what you ask someone to do.
Start With Who You Are Talking To
Before writing a fundraising message, think about the person or group who will receive it and what they already know about you, your challenge and the charity. Your family may already know exactly why the cause matters to you, while a work colleague might know that you are training for a marathon but have no idea why you chose the charity.
Someone from your running club may immediately understand how difficult the running challenge is, whereas somebody who does not run might need more context. Instead of simply asking yourself what you want to say, think about what this particular audience needs to know for your fundraising to mean something to them.
Keep Your Fundraising Story Consistent
Tailoring your message does not mean changing your story depending on who you are talking to. Your reason for fundraising, the challenge you are undertaking and the facts about the charity should remain consistent. What changes is the emphasis you give to different parts of that story.
If you are talking to somebody who knows the person who inspired your fundraising, that shared connection might naturally be central to the message. When speaking to someone who does not know them, you may need to explain the connection before it makes sense.
The same applies to your running challenge. Your running friends may immediately appreciate what training for your event involves, while other people might understand the scale of the challenge better if you explain that you will spend several months preparing for a distance you have never previously attempted. Think of it as telling the same story from slightly different angles rather than creating different versions of the truth.
Make Messages To Friends And Family Personal
Your closest friends and family are often the people with whom you can be most direct. They know you, so there is usually little need for a formal introduction explaining who you are or why they have received the message. Instead, tell them why you have decided to take on the challenge and why their support would mean something to you.
If they already understand your connection with the cause, acknowledge that shared knowledge rather than explaining it as though you were talking to a stranger. If somebody has previously asked about your training or fundraising, that can provide a natural starting point for the conversation.
Personal does not have to mean long. A short WhatsApp message written with a particular person in mind can feel much more genuine than a lengthy generic appeal copied and pasted to everyone in your contacts.
Give Colleagues The Context They Need
People at work may know a very different version of you. Some might know all about your running, while others may have no idea that you have signed up for a major challenge. Give them enough context to understand what you are doing and why it represents a significant commitment.
If colleagues have watched your training develop or regularly ask how it is going, use that shared conversation as the starting point rather than introducing the challenge as though they know nothing about it.
The workplace can also provide opportunities that are not relevant elsewhere. Your employer might offer match giving, colleagues could support a fundraising event or your company may be willing to promote your challenge internally. Your reason for supporting the charity remains important, but the workplace connection can provide another way for people to become involved.
Think About What Other Runners Will Understand
People in your running club, parkrun community or other running networks may connect particularly strongly with the challenge itself. A runner probably does not need an explanation of why completing your first 20 mile training run is significant during marathon preparation because they may have experienced something similar themselves.
Use that shared understanding, but do not forget the charity. The objective is not simply to tell other runners about your training; it is to explain why you are putting that training towards a fundraising challenge.
For a running audience, the physical journey may be the best way into the story. Once you have their attention, connect the challenge back to the cause you are supporting and the fundraising target you are trying to reach.
Lead With The Cause When There Is A Shared Connection
Sometimes the strongest connection between you and a potential supporter is not the running at all. It is the cause you are supporting. Someone may have personal experience of the same illness, used the charity's services, lost somebody to the condition or simply care deeply about the issue.
In those circumstances, the charity's work may be more meaningful to them than whether you are running a 10K, half marathon or marathon. You can put the cause earlier in the message and explain why you are supporting it, along with accurate information from the charity about what fundraising can help it achieve.
Be sensitive when doing this. A person's connection with a cause may involve illness, bereavement or another difficult experience, so do not assume they will want to discuss it or that their connection creates an obligation to donate. The shared connection should make your message more relevant, not put additional pressure on the person receiving it.
Give Wider Audiences More Of The Story
A wider social media audience is different from a group of close friends. Some people seeing your post may know you well, while others may barely know you at all, so you cannot assume everyone already understands what you are doing.
A post that simply says you have £300 left to raise might make sense to somebody who has followed the campaign from the beginning, but it gives a newer follower very little reason to care. Add enough context for the message to work on its own by explaining the challenge, identifying the charity and giving people a reason to understand why it matters to you.
As your fundraising reaches people further away from your immediate circle, this context becomes increasingly important. The less somebody knows about you, the more work your message has to do before you ask them to support you.
Change The Length As Well As The Content
Tailoring is not only about what you say. It can also affect how much you need to say. A direct message to a close friend may require only a few lines because they already understand much of the story, while an email to colleagues might need more explanation.
Your fundraising page can contain the fuller version for anyone who wants to understand the complete background. A social media post might sit somewhere between the two, providing enough information to interest somebody who encounters it without context without reproducing everything on your fundraising page.
This is another reason copying exactly the same text everywhere rarely works well. Different audiences and different situations require different amounts of information, even when the underlying message is the same.
Personalise Direct Messages Properly
There is a difference between a personalised message and a generic message with somebody's first name added at the beginning. If you are contacting somebody individually, think about why you are asking that particular person.
Perhaps they have asked about your training, supported one of your previous challenges, know the charity or previously said they would sponsor you. Referencing that connection can make the message feel like a genuine conversation rather than a mass fundraising exercise, because the recipient can immediately understand why you thought of them.
That does not mean you need to write every message completely from scratch. You can have a basic structure covering the challenge, the charity and your fundraising link, then adapt the opening, emphasis or ask for the person receiving it.
Do Not Assume Everyone Can Donate
Tailoring your message also means recognising that people have different circumstances. Somebody may care deeply about your challenge but simply not be in a position to sponsor you, so avoid language that makes people feel guilty if they cannot donate.
Where appropriate, give them another way to help. They might share your fundraising page, attend an event or tell somebody else about what you are doing. Someone who introduces your story to a new group of people could make a significant contribution to your campaign without donating themselves.
This also makes your communication feel less transactional. You are inviting people to support something you care about rather than treating everyone you contact as a potential source of money.
Change Your Message As The Campaign Develops
The right message at the beginning of your fundraising campaign will not necessarily be the right message a month before your event. At launch, people need to know what you are doing, which charity you are supporting and why. Later, you have new material to work with, including training milestones, fundraising progress, events and stories from the journey.
As race day approaches, the emphasis can change again. You might explain how far your training has come, how close you are to your fundraising target and why the final few weeks matter. After the event, the story changes from what you are going to do to what you have achieved, giving you an opportunity to thank people, share what happened and tell supporters how much has been raised.
The underlying fundraising story remains consistent throughout. What changes is the part of that story that is most relevant to the audience at that particular moment.
Tailor The Ask As Well As The Story
Different supporters may be able to help you in different ways, so tailoring should apply to what you ask them to do as well as what you tell them. A close friend might sponsor you directly, while a colleague could donate and investigate whether your employer offers match giving.
Someone who runs a local business might be able to provide a raffle prize, while a member of your running club could share your fundraising page with the wider club. Think beyond asking everybody for exactly the same thing because sometimes the most useful question is whether somebody can help you reach more people rather than whether they can personally donate.
The easier it is for somebody to understand how they can help, the more useful your message becomes. It also opens your campaign to people who want to support you but cannot make a financial contribution themselves.
Think About Timing
Who you contact matters, but so does when you contact them. Someone who has just asked how your marathon training is going has already given you a natural opportunity to mention your fundraising, while reaching a training milestone or getting close to your target can provide a genuine reason to contact people again.
Race day approaching can create another natural moment because your challenge suddenly feels immediate. Your message now contains something new rather than simply repeating the original request for sponsorship.
Be particularly careful with people who have already donated. Thank them and keep them involved in the journey rather than repeatedly asking for more money. Good timing can make a fundraising message feel like a natural part of an existing conversation instead of an interruption.
Do Not Overcomplicate It
Tailoring your fundraising message should make communication more effective, not leave you trying to write 100 completely different appeals. Start by thinking about a handful of natural groups such as close friends and family, colleagues, running contacts, people connected with the cause and your wider network.
There will inevitably be overlap between those groups, and that is fine. Think about what each group already knows and which part of your story is most likely to make your challenge meaningful to them, then adapt your core fundraising message accordingly.
For individual messages to people you know particularly well, personalise further. For larger groups, tailoring the message to the audience is normally enough. The aim is simply to stop treating everybody you know as though they have exactly the same relationship with you and your fundraising.
Keep It Genuine
There is little point tailoring a fundraising message so much that it stops sounding like you. If you would never normally send a highly emotional message to your running club WhatsApp group, suddenly doing so because you want donations may feel uncomfortable for both you and the people reading it.
If your normal conversations with friends are informal, your fundraising message can be informal too. You do not need fundraising jargon, clever marketing language or an elaborate sales pitch to make the message effective.
The strongest messages usually sound as though a real person has written them to another real person. Use your own language, be clear about what you are doing and give people enough information to understand why it matters. Tailoring should make your fundraising more personal and relevant, not more artificial.
Final Thoughts On Your Fundraising Message
You do not need a different fundraising story for every potential supporter, but you should think about who you are talking to before deciding how to tell it. Your family, colleagues, running friends, people connected with the cause and wider network all know different things about you, so emphasise the part of your story that gives each audience the clearest reason to understand what you are doing.
Tailor the ask as well as the message. Some people will donate, while others might share your page, help with an event, arrange match giving or introduce your fundraising to a new audience. Making your message relevant to the person receiving it can turn a generic sponsorship request into a much more genuine conversation about your challenge and the cause you are supporting.
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