Open Letter Template And Guide printable pdf download

Open Letter Template and Guide

There are a number of things to consider before initiating the open letter process. There is no ‘right’

or ‘wrong’ way to doing an open letter, but it is important your team has a clear understanding of

how you will carry out the tactic before starting.

Signatories. Whose signatures are you collecting? Students, academics, alumni?

If you are collecting academic signatures, will you just collect professors and associate professors, or

will you broaden it out? The university is a hierarchical place, meaning you might like to choose

quality over quantity.

Signatures. Will you accept electronic signatures or will you collect handwritten signatures? Will you

collect the signatures individually or on a form?

Electronic pros: fast, easy to spread.

Handwritten pros: more chance to converse with academics and pass on any campaign materials,

handwritten may carry more weight. Cons: harder to spread and slower to collect.

Updates, additions, changes. How will you deal with wording changes suggested by signatories, or

new information that you want to add? At all times you need to maintain trust with your signatories-

if changes are made, they should be informed.

A good way to go about this is to highlight, at the time that they sign on, that you may add new

divestment commitments or other relevant news in the event that it arises before the letter is

delivered. This means you do not have to notify them every time you add something in.

Targets and Timeframes. Before running your open letter, be sure to set a target number of

signatures by a certain time. This should be realistic but ambitious and meaningful. For example, 20

signatures is not likely to have much of an effect, even if it is all your 1 person team seems capable

of doing! If this is the case, you might like to reconsider the tactic or try and recruit others to help

you out.

Communicate your target and timeframe with signatories so they have a sense of urgency and

understand where you are headed. This will encourage them to seek signatures themselves.

Tracking. If you are collecting academic signatures, or signatures of well-known alumni, it is crucial

that you keep track of who you have contacted. This will avoid embarrassing double-ups and give

you a good sense of the spread of your outreach. Consider making a spreadsheet to log all of your

interactions with academics, with different tabs for each faculty/department.

Disclosure. There are three options for disclosure:

1. Publish the names of signatories as you collect them

2. Publish the names on the day of the delivery, try and get media

3. Deliver the letter to your decision-makers without publishing the names

The advantage of option #2 is that you create suspense and excitement around the unveiling of the

names. Plus, some signatories may well want to remain unnamed until others have also been

named.

Open Letter Template And Guide