2024 Goals
GOAL 1: WRITE MORE LETTERS
Letters Against Depression was founded with one idea in mind: that sending letters full of hope and support from someone who cares could help someone else asking for support on their journey with mental illnesses.
Why letters? For so many reasons.
First, letters are handwritten. This shows we took the time and energy to actually put thoughts to paper. You can really connect with someone’s handwriting, storytelling, use of color, and appreciate the length of the communication. This is not a quickly typed out message on a screen which could have been typed out while the sender was busy doing three other tasks. This is not a quick “yeah, that sucks, hang in there, it gets better.” This is a physical manifestation of support in your hands from someone who took time out of their day to tell you in no uncertain terms you are cared about and matter.
Second, letters are mailed. That means we care enough about you to actually get to the post office, put a stamp on the envelope, and mail you our thoughts. Remember when text messages cost $.10? Well imagine how much we must care about our recipients when we continuously send mail, and the price of stamps keeps rising!
Third, who doesn’t love getting mail that isn’t junk? We know our decorated envelopes, full of words of support, stuffed with an extra dose of love in the form of a hug, bring people to tears upon sight! We know this because they told us! People get so excited to see our mail they have to wait a few days until they calm down to even open it and read it. What an impact our Volunteers make on those who need support.
Fourth, cards are delightful! Cards are fun. Cards can pack a punch around the holidays or birthdays, and there is nothing like getting a batch of cards when you need them the most. But cards are small. They do not have space to fit full stories. There might not be room for empathizing fully with the recipient’s situation. There simply isn’t the space to write a heart-to-heart that a two-letter page provides. Letters are our heart and soul. Cards are our text messages. Both play a role. Both are needed. We just need letters more right now.
2022 showed us that our incredible group of Volunteers LOVE to write cards. They put forth a huge effort to ensure that every single recipient received a BATCH of cards for their two chosen holidays and their birthday. AMAZING! Cards also give our Volunteers new ways to feed their creativity and have fun.
However, the feedback we are receiving directly from our recipients is this:
They are sad they are not getting as many letters as they thought they would when they signed up.
They are sad it takes so much time between letters when they do come.
They miss the regularity of seeing one of our envelopes in the mail.
They feel forgotten about.
They feel like they are not important enough to be written to or their story doesn’t matter.
So this year, 2024, we are vowing to write more letters! Last year we sent 70, 727 letters and 8,488 cards. **PHENOMENAL** Our goal was 15,000 letters. This year, if we put in the effort, we can make that 15,000 happen! We currently have slightly over 1,000 active recipients on our mailing list. We are growing every day with new sign ups. We should be able to get through our entire mailing list every 3 months or so, if not sooner. This was our gold standard at one point, it can be our gold standard again.
If you have any questions about how to help us reach our goal, please contact Kim at LADInnovationComm@gmail.com. She is here to help you!
GOAL 2: RAISE $50, 000
Letters Against Depression is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Our funds come entirely from donations and sales of our merchandise. Last year our goal was to raise $30,000. We managed to blow past that and raised $36,941.63! INCREDIBLE!
Most of that money goes directly into operation costs. This pays for the price of stamps, envelopes, hosting the website, hosting the portal, paying for the mailbox, and making sure we have the equipment on hand for Rob to run the sites, and turn around the mail. Absolutely NO ONE at LAD earns money from this organization. From Rob to the board, to the Committee Leaders, to the Interns, to the Volunteers - we all do this because we love to do this. We do not make any money off this at all. Every cent we raise goes directly back into the organization and if we do spend money on Volunteers, we have budgeted that amount for appreciation gifts and prizes.
We have two large costs which we desperately need funds for: the website and the Volunteer Portal.
The website is the first thing people see about us. It’s our face to the world. We would love nothing more than to have to awesome website able to accurately depict the fantastic work this organization does. We would love to show more of the volunteer work, host more pics and videos, provide more information, and be able to update it more regularly with information you all care about! We would like to hold up our website as a source of pride so when we send out grants or other companies want to work with us, we can direct them to the appropriate areas to find information.
Right now, we understand our website has flaws. The links at the top don’t always work, pages look cluttered, the formats are not uniform, the color might not come across well on screen. We have tried to update the site in order to showcase who we are at heart; however, the confines we must work within to do this limit us and thus limits our ability to be our authentic selves. We have been quoted a price of $20,000 for a new website. We would like to see this happen.
Our Volunteer Portal has also broken. This is not due to something we did, but rather the company which hosts the platform has been bought out and made changes. They have evolved their product to something which no longer suits LAD’s needs. We will need to make a change so we can still have our Portal. This Portal is the soul of LAD. We host the stories, collect information, and record people’s submissions on this site. We also interact with Volunteers directly on the portal. We send out the messages for letters, let Volunteers know we have received and sent out their letters. Volunteers record their hugs. We also use this site to record how many total Volunteer Hours someone has earned and use that information to write letters of recommendation or completion for various entities. This could be for community hours, schools, government, and other private companies which require community service.
As many of our Volunteers have told us, they are upset the Portal does not update correctly. They can not tell if their letters have been received or sent out. They can not see the feedback. Their hours do not reflect the work they have put in. This is demoralizing, as we all know Volunteers are more engaged when they can see the impact they are having. Unfortunately, we can not fix this without the funds to buy a new product to host our Volunteer Portal. We expect this to cost us several thousand dollars, but we have not been able to get a direct quote from other companies yet. We will update this with more information as we know it.
In total, our operating costs are $30,000. We require $20,000 for a new website. We will need several thousand more for a new Volunteer Portal. $50,000 is our goal for 2024.
If you are interested in donating, please click the button below. THANK YOU!
“I love you guys. You’re one of my favorite organizations because your entire focus is on bettering peoples’ mental health, which is something I am deeply passionate about. Thank you for what you do <3”