Details make all the difference in this Boys Town appeal.

By Kimberly Seville

“I’m also enclosing a Christmas card for you to send back to our kids.” I love that this letter freely calls the people Boys Town helps “kids” — not “children” (ugh) or “youth” (double ugh), but what a donor would likely call them: kids.

And without being at all preachy, the letter has a nice way of gently weaving in a bit of religious copy appropriate for an explicitly Christmas (not holiday) appeal. “This is the first time Paul will say grace before a Christmas meal,” for example. Or the beautiful postscript: “P.S. During this season of giving, Boys Town remembers that God gave us his Son, the greatest of gifts, on the very first Christmas. Thank you for helping Boys Town to be the arms He uses to embrace those lost and forgotten children with His warm, healing love.”