Considering that no one else wanted to do this, I mocked up the letter that we would send to the charities. It's a little rough around the edges, and my writing is a bit rusty from not having to write essays for a while, but it should be a good starting point:
Dear [Charity],
We here at ZeldaSpeedRuns are going to be raising money in a gaming marathon and would like to benefit a charity. We have looked into your organization and were wondering if you would like to sponsor us. We will be speedrunning the entire Zelda series for 48 hours straight, and we expect to finish well within the established timeframe. The marathon will begin at 9 PM EST on Friday, July 9th, and will end at 9PM EST on Sunday, July 11th.
This is not the first time that ZSR has done a marathon; we have previously completed the four 3D Zelda games in less than 20 hours [Don’t we have the videos saved somewhere? We should link to them if we do]. We have also taken great care not to schedule our marathon haphazardly; by using the results of a Youtube poll [should we provide the link?], we have carefully constructed an itinerary that will maximize the number of viewers and, consequentially, maximize the number of donations. [I remember someone saying something about the highest donator choosing the file name for the next game or the last game we play or something like that. If there are any definite details on that, include it here.]
As you should be able to see, we are taking this marathon very seriously, and we would deeply appreciate your cooperation. If you would like more information on the marathon, visit
http://marathon.zeldaspeedruns.com/ [BLIZZ, FINISH THESE PAGES]; if you have any additional questions, [insert some way for them to contact us]. With your help, we can make this an entertaining and beneficial experience for all.
With regards,
The ZSR Team
