"....... You really must be willing to send a "donation." Either include something or phone ahead to ask their preferred amount." And for heaven's sake, if you are asking for a search and really expect someone to do that for you, enclose at least $20 and do refer to that amount in your letter. Oftentimes the check is cashed long before anyone gets around to answering the letter request --- and due to a lot of changes at a seminary, it was 12 years before a letter of ours was answered --- but it was a real treasure trove when we finally got the response! No good and honorable person can refuse to do the work if the check has been cashed and you enclose your SASE. So let them know in the letter. But it may be that the request gets packed up in storage for a year or gets burned up in a fire or gets moved from Boston to Baltimore when that order of priests closes a seminary or an office --- and no one unpacks the carton for the next ten years!