Want an example of a funny appeal letter?
Here’s one I wrote awhile ago.
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Dear Friend,
Have you ever opened a women’s magazine, or seen one on the shelf in a grocery store? Do you shrug and look away? Do you pick it up? If you open it, you might see this photoshop disaster:
It’s like she’s saying, “I only have one leg, but it’s a really great leg.”
Or how about this disaster? Kimora just had a baby. Here are her before and after photoshop pictures.
This could be called a Photoshop success, if your suspension of disbelief goes up to 11.
In the picture on the left, Kimora looks more like a woman who just had a baby. In the picture on the right, she looks more like an alien.
You may laugh, but every year, 1,000 women die of anorexia and bulimia. These Photoshop disasters are indicative of tens of thousands of other disasters. The more perfect women you see, the more you think something’s wrong with you because you’re not perfect.
You see these images in the grocery store, in the movies, on packages, on billboards, everywhere. How can you combat them?
Donate to ANAD today, and help us advocate for realistic portrayals of women in media.
1. We talk with media moguls and beauty product manufacturers every month.
2. We talk with lawmakers and get them to see how this dangerous repetition of alien bodies affects all of us.
3. We talk with girls and boys in K-12 schools and help them become savvy media consumers.
Twenty dollars that you donate today can help stop photoshop disasters, and real life disasters for our daughters and sons forever.
Sincerely,
Laura Discipio
Executive Director
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What do you think? Is it effective for you?
I decided to draw attention to the fact that women are buying the lie that they must be thin, based on ridiculous advertisements. I believe the more we can laugh at how horrible these Photoshop disasters are, the more we can help people become savvy consumers of media.
(Thanks to psdisasters.com)
Would this make YOU give?
Do you have an example of a funny appeal letter that you received?
What do you think of Rob Delaney’s little ditty on beauty culture?
I work with a charity that supports people with facial disfigurements and i so want to introduce some humour into the way we communicate. I can think of a few straplines that can get our message across whilst taking a dig at the airbrushing nature of womens magazines,
I think it’s good. I would be tempted to add in body dysmorphia caused by these unrelistic representations are affecting women and increasingly men, boys and girls as young as five. help us in stopping this charade. Donate £X bla bla. but then it might be too long and the tone is different.
I have been trying to create a new voice for the facial disfigurement charity i work with. Our communications tend to quite formal, i think humour makes charity info more readable, marks the charity out and could be a great way to engage with a younger demographic.
Love lovel your website and especially the interview with The Detective Fundraiser.
Yes. I think it’s great! For me, what would make it even better would be a quote from someone who was really influenced by these types of images in a negative way, and a one-sentence description of a study demonstrating that it is the images, not someone’s family background, that cause or increase anorexia rates, etc. It wouldn’t be as funny, but the intro is still funny. For me there is a bit of tension between free speech and healthy body images in the media, so demonstrating real harm is necessary for me to want to influence the publishers about this stuff. I’m a feminist, but I’m an artist, too…
Tessa thank you for writing!
A way to make facial disfigurements funny… that’s tricky!
I think that might be one for Patch Adams. He could even make death funny.
I wonder if a reminder of the children’s humanity might be appropriate?
For example, put a clown nose on a kid with a facial disfigurement, and then some sort of tagline, like “Even with a cleft palate, she’s still a kid” or something, to remind parents that their kids would still want to have fun if they had a facial disfigurement?
It’s not particularly funny though.
Rob Delaney does tons of inappropriate humor. Maybe some local comedians could be tasked with making some jokes up about your cause? Best one gets featured, with credit, in your e-newsletter?
Do you have any comedy clubs where you live?
Thanks for your compliment about my website Tessa, I really appreciate it. Craig Linton’s Fundraising Detective is a good website. Highly recommend you check him out, he’s always got good resources! 🙂
Mazarine
Dear Sarah,
I like your idea! yes, something to make it a bit more tangible, a quote from someone with anorexia, or a graph about anorexia stats going off the charts thanks to photoshop disasters, the larger historical context, it would make it longer, but it’s important to personalize it to one person too. You’re right.
Good idea!
Mazarine