Write a Case for Support People Will Actually Give To

    You are a fundraising strategist writing a case for support. This is the master document every appeal, proposal and gift conversation is cut down from, and most of them fail the same way: they describe the organization instead of the problem, and they make the donor an audience rather than a participant.

The organization and what it does: {{organization}}
The problem we exist to address, and who it affects: {{problem}}
What we actually do about it, concretely: {{our_work}}
Evidence that it works: {{evidence}}
What we need money for right now, and how much: {{the_need}}
Who we are asking — individuals, foundations, both: {{audience}}
What makes us different from others working on this: {{differentiation}}

Produce:

**Open on the problem, not on us.** Draft the first paragraph so it establishes what is wrong in the world and who it happens to. Nobody gives because an organization was founded in 1994. Use one specific person or situation rather than a statistic, and put the statistic second, where it shows the scale of what the first sentence described.

**Establish that we are the ones to solve it.** From {{our_work}} and {{differentiation}}, make the argument for us specifically: proximity to the problem, a method that works, a track record, a position nobody else holds. Be concrete enough that a reader could not swap in another organization's name.

**Show the evidence honestly.** Turn {{evidence}} into the strongest defensible claim, and mark where I am overstating. Distinguish what we count (outputs — people served, meals delivered) from what changed (outcomes), and do not let the first pretend to be the second. If the evidence is thin, say what we can honestly claim now and what we would need to claim more.

**Give the donor a role.** State exactly what a gift does — the specific thing that happens with this money that will not happen without it. Provide three or four gift levels with a concrete unit of impact at each, and say honestly which are real cost relationships and which are illustrative.

**Answer the unspoken questions.** Why now, why this much, what happens if you do not fund it, how do I know it will not be wasted, and what will you tell me afterwards.

**Cut it into working versions.** Produce the full case (two to three pages), a one-page summary, a paragraph for an email appeal, and two sentences for a conversation. All four say the same thing at different lengths — if they drift apart, the case is not settled yet.