Lovely E-Mail

I get quite a few e-mails each day. Some are from people asking about my services, others want me to answer their questions, and still others write rather lengthy stories about various hardships that they want to overcome by getting grants that don't exist. Then there is the e-mail I received yesterday asking for a donation so that the sender could attend a conference in Las Vegas, which she can't pay for because she doesn't have any consulting work. Hmmm, I would like donations so that I too could go to Las Vegas.

But every so often I receive an e-mail that just plain makes me happy. I got one of those yesterday too. Here it is:

I am 30 yrs old with little to no experience in writing up
proposals. I am currently working in a middle management position in a
small company. I feel I have an idea that would greatly benefit the
company I am currently working for. After approaching one of the senior
management with it, he told me he liked it and to write up a proposal.

I have been searching the internet for the past week and a half
attempting to gain insight and advice into how to create a quality
proposal. I am not the type of person how expects, or even wants, to
have someone else do my work for me. Most of the sites I found offered
to create a proposal for a fee. It is my belief that unless
circumstances require otherwise that a person should learn to do things
for themselves. It was a nice surprise to find on your site a starter
list of sorts that I could use to begin to make a proposal on my own.
Your "Proposal Preparation Checklist" and Proposal Pointers and
Pitfalls" are wonderful tools and I wanted to take a moment to thank you
for freely distributing them. It is a welcome relief when someone sets
forward information to allow people to empower themselves. The links
you have provided to other websites are also wonderful. Just skimming
over the Checklist and Pointers, I have already noticed some points I
would never have considered.

So again, thank you so very much. I really appreciate the effort you
have put into your site and also the information you have offered freely.

What a beautifully-written thank-you note. And to boot, it expresses my own mantra -- "do your homework" -- just perfectly.

It's just so nice when something like this pops up in your mailbox!