English Template for contacting NGOs

[Kathleen]

Dear members of the Finding NGOs Working Group,

Some of us proposed to modify the existing letter in order to have better chances to get in touch with NGOs.

Please find the "old" letter below and feel free to comment or make suggestions for improvement:

Dear NGO X,

We are starting up a European Citizens' Initiative called Fraternité2020, which is concerned with making EU exchange programmes (such as the European Voluntary Service or Erasmus) more attractive in order to build what we like to think of as a 'united Europe at grass-roots level'. The initiative is already supported by a number of world-renowned academics (see here) and NGOs from all over Europe (see here). You can find more information here: www.F2020.eu

We are currently trying to expand our base of supporting NGOs all over Europe to increase our chances of being successful with this initiative. We therefore wanted to turn to you and ask if maybe we could add NGO X to our list of supporting NGOs (no other obligations involved!): www.fraternite2020.eu/NGOs.html

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. We would be very happy to have your support!

Either way, best wishes for all your wonderful projects!
Your Name (on behalf of the F2020 Team)

I think this forum here is a better platform to do our work than by E-Mail.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon guys!

Best,
Kathleen

[sarahverjux]

Hi

I was thinking that the letter does not mention the 3 main goals. Shall we add them with a short summary ?

If you send a letter to an organization which will probably read it quite quickly -> do you think they will go online on F2020.eu to learn more about this initiative?

If you don't agree with me about adding the 3 main goals, well, we can start sending the letters.

Sarah

[Kathleen]

Hi Sarah,

I think it is a good idea to add the three main goals but it should be a very short summary, maybe one sentence or two. Otherwise it will be too long and not interesting to read.

And yes, I think if they are really interested in what we are doing they will at least have a look at the website. How deep they watch, I have no idea....

[Markus]

I would advise against adding information on each individual goal in the letter. Ironically enough, for the same reason Sarah invokes in her post

NGOs are pressed for time. So, we should not overburden them with information. Also, the goals are not so easy do describe in one or two sentences! Our third goal, the 'Open Method of Coordination', for example is rather difficult to communicate (see here).

Hence, I think it would be better to send just a minimalistic letter as first contact - and refer them to our homepage for more information.

Best wishes,
Markus

[lukesempire]

Heya,

I agree and disagree at the same time. I think we need to add information but also see Markus' point. Maybe it is a good solution to structure the whole thing like an application. The template on top as "cover letter" and a short introduction to our initiative as "CV".

Cheers,
Ingo

[helenaerbanova]

Hey guys,

I think it would be a good idea to inform about our main goals in the email itself, but not in the main letter. Technically, I would solve it in a following manner: we could send the letter as in the template and add there a sentence (at the end), something like "To get familiar with our main goals, see below" and then the goals might be described below the signature, thus after the main message. Then it is there, but it is not disturbing. The main message still seems short, but it will give the NGO a choice of reading it either in the email or on our webpage (or not at all).

Cheers,

Helena

[Kathleen]

I like Helena's idea. I think that would represent the perfect compromise!

[danstefanica]

tell me when you have the final version so I can translate it into Romanian

[Kathleen]

@dan: I think you can go ahead with the translation. It seems that the discussion about adding something to the current version got a little bit lost....

Thanks in any case for helping us....