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TY Thursday: A Personal Letter is Better Than a Personalized One

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Laura Rhodes

Laura Rhodes

A guest post by Laura Rhodes, Third Sector Consulting

Are your thank you letters personalized, personal, or both?

Putting your donor’s name in the letter and referring to the gift amount? That’s personalization.

Thanking your donor for something specific that they did? That’s personal.

Let me give you a couple of examples of how I recently made some thank you letters personal. Then I’ll share some ways you can make your own thank you letters more personal, too.

You see, my thank you letter writing skills were put to the test late last year. My mother passed away in October.

While her death was unexpected, the outpouring of love and support that followed was not. As you might expect, our family received cards, calls, food, flowers and more after her passing. Many people sent memorial donations to her church and other charities.

It all added up to a lot of people who needed to be thanked, for a lot of different reasons.

Would it have been easier to send a generic thank you note, along the lines of “Our family appreciates your thoughtfulness during this difficult time.” Yes, absolutely.

Is that what I did? Absolutely not!

Just like your donors, my friends and family members are special people. And I wanted them to know that. To feel my genuine appreciation. To feel special when they received and read their thank you note.

So, for instance, in one letter to a friend, I told him how his was one of the first sympathy cards I received and how much his handwritten note meant to me. Then I thanked him for his memorial donation.

In a letter to one of my cousins, I told her that her hug was the very first one I received on the day of my Mom’s Celebration of Life and how it gave me strength. Then I thanked her for her family’s role in the service.

sympathy flowersAnd for the neighbor who couldn’t attend the Celebration, but sent flowers, I sent a picture of those flowers along with a copy of the service program. Then I thanked her for being with us in spirit that day.

 

I can hear you saying, “But that’s different. I don’t know my donors like that!”

You might be surprised at what you know about your donors. And with that information, you can make your thank you letters more personal.

First, pay attention to your donors’ giving habits.

For instance, did your donor make more than one gift this year? Did she give more this year than last? Has she given for 3, or 5, or 10 years in a row? Is she a first-time donor?

Acknowledge her gift, tell her that you noticed that it was an extra gift (or an increased gift, or a milestone gift, or a first-time gift, etc.). Then tell her what her donation will do and give a specific example of how it will make a difference.

Second, pay attention to your donors’ actions.

For instance, did she attend your fundraising event this year? Sponsor a table? Buy an auction item? Volunteer on a committee? Volunteer within your program?

You’re going to write a thank you whenever a donor makes a monetary contribution. When you do, look for and recognize the other ways that she supports your organization.

Making it personal is about letting your donor know that you noticed what she did. It also means telling her, very specifically, why her contribution (of time, talent, treasure or all three!) was meaningful.

One last tip to make your letters personal: Handwrite as many notes as possible.

In today’s digital age, where so much seems so impersonal, a handwritten note will stand out. Your donor will appreciate that you took the time to write. It shows that you really care.

At a minimum, pen a personal P.S. on your computer-printed thank you letter. Folks will read what’s handwritten, even if they don’t read the rest.

Bottom line: When you “Wow!” your donors with a prompt and personal thank you, you’ll be well on your way to giving your donors what they want – and what they deserve.

WANT MORE THANK YOU IDEAS?

Check out these posts from the Let’s Talk Nonprofit blog:

How Your Thank You Letter Can Put More Money in the Bank

Anatomy of a Stellar Thank You Letter

What a 10-Year-Old Can Teach You About Thanking Your Donors

P.S. If you liked this article, you can receive posts like these each month in your email. Topics include fundraising, grant writing, board development, and best practices.

Sign up today, join the conversation, and Let’s Talk Nonprofit.

TY Thursday: Grateful for Online Gifts? Show it!

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Did your nonprofit get a lot of online donations at the end of 2018? Congratulations!

ungratefulDo your donors know how grateful you are? Maybe not. And there’s something you can do about it.

What My Donor Experience Can Teach Us

On December 27, I gave fifteen donations to nonprofits by whipping out my wallet and punching in my credit card number. Here’s how they responded.

Headlines

First the good news: when I made a gift, I knew it had gone through. Why? When I hit Submit, I landed on an acknowledgments page. So far, so good.

But in bold letters at the top of each page, I saw too many messages like “Transaction Successful,” “Your payment was approved,” or “You’ve donated $36 to” the name of the organization.

Those are not thanks. They’re credit card receipts.

(In one case, the first thing that caught my eye was “You do not have an active membership.” So much for gratitude!)

I hope your nonprofit was one of the ones who did better:

  • You explicitly and enthusiastically said “Thank you!”
  • You called me and my wife by name.
  • You restated the difference our donation would make.

If not, do better next time. Rewrite the headline on your acknowledgments page today.

(If your system for accepting donations won’t let you write better headlines, then get a better system. Now.)

Messages

Below that headline, most often the nonprofits I gave to did use the words “thank you” somewhere. Sometimes, that was practically all they said, with the assurance that an acknowledgement was in the mail (or email).

I felt bad for these nonprofits, because they  just missed an opportunity.

I hope your nonprofit was one of the ones who did better:

The first thing you tell a donor after they make a gift is thank you--but along with that, you tell them why they made the right decision.

What just happened as a result of their donation? Did somebody get a meal, a place to sleep, new dance shoes for the dance class they could never afford on their own, a vaccination that will protect them and their family all year?

If you merely restated your mission, that was better than nothing. But if you told me the impact of my donation, that was even better. And best of all would be telling me a story. If you do that, I will really remember it!

Calls to action

I was glad to see that none of these acknowledgments include the dreaded “thask” (the thank-you that asks for another donation).

But it cheered me when you asked me to take some other action right away besides donating. For instance:

  • Telling my friends I’d made a donation
  • Asking my employer if they’d match my gift
  • Signing up to receive more information throughout the coming year (which means trusting you with my email address)

As your donor and your supporter, I hope your nonprofit was one of the ones who did better. And as a communications consultant, I can help make sure you do. Let’s work together in 2019. Drop me an email to [email protected]

I’ll be grateful.

TY Thursday: Torn Between Two Donor Lovers?

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two lovers

Which one deserves your #donorlove?

If you’re going to go out of your way to thank a donor fabulously, creatively, as many times and as many ways as you can, which donor should get your love?

Do you single out the person who gives you the most money, or the person who gives most loyally over the years?

Let me tell you two stories to help you decide.

The Sudden Passion

The receptionist at the anti-poverty agency where I worked brought me the day’s mail. I opened a handful of reply envelopes from our most recent fundraising appeal. Then I gasped. A woman who had never given us a penny before had sent in a check for $1,000!

For our little nonprofit, $1,000 was a fortune. It was ten times the amount of the average donor’s gift. And it was the first time that Jean had donated. We had great hopes for the future.

As far as I know, we did all the right things to let Jean feel the #donorlove. We

  • Sent her a thank-you letter with a personal note from the Executive Director, the same day we received her donation
  • Followed it up with a voicemail
  • Listed her in our newsletter and annual report
  • Invited her to special events

Yet we never heard from Jean again. I still don’t know why. Perhaps she meant to give to an organization in town with a similar name, and she was too embarrassed to tell us she’d made a mistake? Or perhaps we’d touched her heart just that one time, and the morning after, she realized she loved some other organization better?

I’m not sorry we had our brief moment of passion with Jean. But I’m glad we didn’t run away with her, thinking it was true love, and forget about the donors waiting at home.

The Love of a Lifetime

John was a client of our agency. He couldn’t give much at a time–certainly not $1,000! But he had volunteered or served on the Board for twenty-five years.

Whenever we sent an appeal letter, he gave what he could. And when we had our twenty-fifth anniversary gala, John went around town (walking with a cane) and solicited gifts from local businesses. Back at his subsidized elderly housing, he went door to door and asked his neighbors to donate.

Over a lifetime, John raised $1,000 many times over.

Because John was shy, we couldn’t applaud him in public the way we would have liked. We sent him thank-yous and listed his donations, but we never toasted him or sent him gifts.

At Board meetings, however, we thanked him and held him up as an example. And our agency went above and beyond to make sure he  (and later, his daughter) would keep his housing and benefits, even when he was hospitalized for months at a time. That was another way of saying thanks.

If You Have to Choose Your True Love, Here’s How

Ideally, of course, you’d thank every donor fervently and frequently. Aim to do that! If you have to choose, however, pick your most loyal donors at every level.

Don’t just thank your major donors. If your newsletters are full of pictures of people who pay for whole buildings or programs, then your average donor will think, “This organization doesn’t need people like me.”

Show the love to the donors who, over time, show the most true love to you. Click To Tweet

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