When the link to this site was first sent to me for comment in terms of its potential usefulness in our work in facilitating dialogue between 'victims & offenders' in cases of serious criminal harms, I was sceptical: "Oh, no", I thought, "not another simplistic formulaic approach to the healing of the most complex matters of the human heart." But, having looked more closely, I am impressed that it does assist in causing one to think through a number of the most important elements of genuine apology.

— Dave Gustafson, Co-Director, Community Justice Initiatives, Langley, BC, Canada"

Saying sorry is rarely easy. This website is an inspiring example of restorative justice in action. It breaks apology down into simple steps that make it harder for us to deny our responsibility to apologise.

— John Braithwaite, author of Crime, Shame and Reintegration, from Cannaberra, Australia.

While in general I'm not excited about generated letters, the advantage of this one is that it helps people address the key elements of apology. This is especially important since most of us don't seem to know this.”

— Howard Zehr, author of Changing Lenses.

Apologyletter.org is a brilliant idea and an extremely useful devise that can be used by just about anyone in any circumstance. Saying sorry is not easy and the website provides useful prompts and insights as well as the support so often needed in making that first courageous step towards apology. Whether the letter is sent or not, in the act of composing an apology to someone can come great healing.

— Marina Cantacuzino, founder and director of The Forgiveness Project, http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/, London, England.

The concept of helping people framing a genuine apology will be very useful for those who struggle with words. We make assumptions that people know how to do this naturally, but apology and acknowledgement are quite complex social skills. This program will help those who want to make things right for those they have wronged.

— Marg Thorsborne, restorative justice trainer, http://www.thorsborne.com.au/, Australia.

“It is a lovely piece of work that will help people think about the process of heartfelt apology. It clearly is going to be used in the context of other work and perhaps at the end of a course or workshop. The writing of the letter is one process for the writer - the sending of it involves much more consideration . . . the readiness of the recipient to receive such a communication should be tested out before anything is sent as to receive such an explicit letter could be a real shock.”

— Tim Newell, Past prison governor United Kingdom, currently working with those affected by serious crime.

This is a very interesting, creative, and useful exercise. Even beyond the highly important area of apology, the exercise can serve as a model to elicit pertinent information and emotions in a wide-range of contexts, including many legally-relevant ones.

— David B. Wexler, founder Therapeutic Jurisprudence, http://www.therapeuticjurisprudence.org, and law professor University of Puerto Rico.