Letter 1

Note: Best practices recommend focusing on one story per appeal. The four Carnegie Museums have a donor base with specific museum affinities, but at the time, we were not able to pull affinity-based lists to segment the mailing. So for this first letter, I was required to include both a science museum story and an art museum story to appeal to the interests of the diverse donor audience.

Dear <Name>:

Why does your support of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh matter? 

In 2016, Carnegie Science Center brought a three-week maker program to a local school, where students designed, built, and flew a copter in a competition. A student named Michael won. He had struggled in school and with the law, but his success renewed his interest in learning.

Yet no long-term program was in place to support Michael after the competition, and he fell through the cracks.

This heartbreaking loss drove the Science Center team to create Mentors in the Making. If a pipeline wasn’t available for students like Michael, they were determined to build one.

Now in its third year, Mentors in the Making—hosted in the BNY Mellon FabLab—has twenty student-mentor pairs who meet twice per week to tackle design projects. Some of the students have received their first job as summer camp assistants, and the Science Center team is exploring post-secondary opportunities to extend the pipeline—thanks to the generous supper of donors like you.

If students can’t visit the museums, we must bring the museums to them, so that we won’t lose another student like Michael.

As we bring 2019 to a close, I’m asking you to make a gift of <Amount 1>, <Amount 2>, or even <Amount 3> to make the museums available to all. Because it’s not just students who benefit from your support of Carnegie Museums. Those students become adults who make a powerful impact on their community. 

Museum-based learning fills a significant gap, providing children and youth with the skills and support they need to meet their potential. As a result, they step into thousands of jobs in science, technology, and the creative arts that allow our region to flourish. 

Teens slip into the Museum of Art on Saturday mornings, steps echoing as they walk to art class. They might be painting a still life, molding clay, assembling a collage, or wandering through the museum galleries to look—really look—at what is front of them.

While the name of the classes has changed through the decades, the sense of artistic discovery they’ve awakened in generations of students remains the same. Pam Goldblum, who attended the classes for three years, went on to become an acclaimed artist and teacher, and still views the classes as a pivotal moment in her life.

“[They] gave us a space where it was safe to be our most creative,” says Goldblum, a university lecturer of studio arts whose work is included in the collections of the Walker Art Center, Laguna Art Museum, and Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris.

In fact, the program was an early step on the way to international recognition for Andy Warhol, whose transformational ideas and work swept the art world. For many others, the classes are a magical family tradition that changed the way they viewed their world. 

You can inspire children today so that they can become leaders tomorrow.

Museum-based experiences provide new avenues for personal exploration, critical thinking, and job skill development. When you give to Carnegie Museums, you join a movement—a movement of more than 33,000 people like you who’ve made the choice to ensure that the museums remain open and available for all.

Will you give today? It’s because of people like you that Carnegie Museums has inspired our region for more than 100 years. Together we can inspire more people to discover their talents and to help their communities thrive.

I couldn’t be more grateful for you. Please consider giving to create another year of inspiration: our visitors, our students, and even our families are waiting. 

Sincerely,

Cari Maslow
Associate Vice President

Letter 2

Dear <Name>:

Your mailbox is likely filled to the brim this holiday season with letters from nonprofit organizations, so I wanted to take a moment to answer an important question: Will your gift to Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh really make a difference?

Your gift to Carnegie Museums today will impact numerous young people, including Nathaniel Wharton’s students.

Nathaniel is a science teacher at a local high school. Over the years, he’s watched countless students blossom after participating in Carnegie Science Center’s STEM competitions. Competitions made possible by donors like you.

For Nathaniel, one student’s story stands out. This student wasn’t planning on going to college and had no plans for his future. Then he entered one of the Science Center’s competitions his senior year. As he collaborated with teammates to design a project, he discovered a passion for science. Afterwards, he applied for—and received—a full scholarship to pursue a career in science and technology.

“[The competition] totally changed the direction of his life,” Nathaniel said.

As one of our dedicated supporters, you know that Carnegie Museums reaches nearly 300,000 students through educational programming each year. Many of those students attend for free because people like you understand that educating the next generation is not just a shared responsibility but also a necessity.

Still, there’s so much more that you, I, and other like-minded people can do. Today, I ask you to consider giving <X>, <Y>, or even <Z> to empower even more students to change the direction of their lives.

Your gift today will make all the difference to someone else tomorrow. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Cari Maslow
Associate Vice President