Donor-Centered Thank You Letters: Your First Step to the Next Gift
A dear friend of mine is a dedicated philanthropist, as is his wife. Both as a couple and independently, they support many charitable organizations in their quiet, yet deliberate way. While reviewing the day’s mail recently, my friend’s wife plunked her stack of letters down in her lap and, with a tone of exasperation in her voice, she remarked, “Is there only one thank you letter?”
When I first conducted research over a decade ago on the impact of thank you letters on donor loyalty and generosity, donors identified two prominent deficiencies — the time it took to receive acknowledgement letters after making gifts and the predictable nature of their content. I am happy to report that donors now say they receive far more thank you letters in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, they continue to be deflated by the content.
What Donors Say Makes Thank You Letters Superior
My research on thank you letters culminated in a list of the 20 Characteristics of Great Thank You Letters which was published in Donor-Centered Fundraising. Over the years I have had many reports from thrilled Development professionals who have re-engineered their acknowledgement letters according to these principles, raising more money and improving donor retention as a result. Many have also received immediate and very generous additional gifts from donors who were now reading something they could get excited about. One story is particularly memorable. A community hospice sent their new donor-centered thank you letter to a first-time donor who had just made a $100 contribution. The delighted donor called the organization because she “wanted to meet the person who had written such a beautiful letter”. Donor and Fundraiser fell into conversation about the Hospice and its future plans. The next day a check arrived via courier with a post-it note attached which read, For your hopes and dreams. The check was for $25,000.
Here is my list of the 20 things that make a thank you letter superior:
- The letter is a real letter, not a pre-printed card.
- It is personally addressed.
- It has a personal salutation (no “dear donor” or “dear friend”).
- It is personally signed.
- It is personally signed by someone from the highest ranks of the organization
- It makes specific reference to the intended use of funds.
- It indicates approximately when the donor will receive an update on the program being funded.
- It includes the name and phone number of a staff person whom the donor can contact at any time or an invitation to contact the writer directly.
- It does not ask for another gift.
- It does not ask the donor to do anything (like complete an enclosed survey, for example.)
- It acknowledges the donor’s past giving, where applicable.
- It contains no spelling or grammatical errors.
- It has an overall “can do”, positive tone as opposed to a hand wringing one.
- It communicates the excitement, gratitude and inner warmth of the writer.
- It grabs the reader’s attention in the opening sentence.
- It speaks directly to the donor.
- It does not continue to “sell”.
- It is concise – no more than two short paragraphs long.
- It is received by the donor promptly.
- Plus, in some circumstances, the letter is handwritten.
Compiling a Resource as Precious as Gold
At the request of colleagues who understand the power of uncompromising communication, I plan to compile a catalog of the best examples of Donor-Centered Thank You Letters and provide it to everyone whose submission is included. If you have adapted thank you letters according to the twenty donor-centered principles above or if you would like to do so now, I would love to receive samples of your correspondence and, if you have it, evidence that your donor-centered letters have helped your fundraising efforts.
I eagerly await your contributions, and don’t hesitate to post a comment if you have any questions about something on that list of twenty characteristics. Here is a clue that will lead to greatness — more than 80% of thank you letters start with Thank you for your generous gift of… or its first cousin, On behalf of the Board of Directors, thank you for your generous gift of…
I’m counting on you to be so much more brilliant than that.
Donor-Centered Thank You Letters Submissions
If you wish your submission to be anonymous, please be sure to make note of that when you submit your thank-you letter. Should that be the case, your letter will be edited to preserve anonymity, if need be.
Send your Donor-Centered Thank-You letters to: dcfthankyou@cygnusresearch.net
Deadline for submissions is October 1, 2011.
Posted in The Cygnus Donor Survey
August 25th, 2011 at 2:36 pm
Penelope,
I love these 20 characteristics. One thing that has come up at my organization as we re-write our letters is how to handle tax information. There are certain requirement in US law regarding the substation of donations for donors to claim tax-deductions, especially if any good/services are provided in exchange for the donation (as with fundraising events, for example). There are many ways of doing this that we’ve thought of, including sending a tax receipt under separate cover (immediately or at the end of the year), as a separate page in the same envelope, or in very small print at the bottom of the thank-you letter. Any advice on these or other ways of doing it?
Thanks!
August 26th, 2011 at 9:22 am
Kirk,
You are right in suspecting that placement of the tax receipt information impacts the quality of the letter. It is important that donors get that IRS or CCRA (for Canadian donors) acknowledgement along with the thank you letter but not inserted into the body of the narrative you have taken so much effort to craft. It’s wording is cold and official and can ruin all your attempts to write something that makes donors feel good. The best way to handle this is to enclose the tax receipt as a separate piece of paper, one-third the size of a standard letter and folded inside the letter as you would when enclosing a check. You should avoid stapling it to the letter. Also, placing this copy below the signature deters from your letter and using a design with a perforated section at the bottom turns your beautiful letter into something that looks like an advertising supplement. This may seem awfully picky, but it matters. Donors keep letters they love, reading them again and again. To maximize the benefit, you should strive for both the content and the visual experience to be exemplary.
-Penelope
August 26th, 2011 at 9:51 am
We’re a foundation and make grants to other charities, so we won’t know specifically what funds will be used for until we review grant applications. The funds have a general or specific purpose depending on the fund, but we won’t know the specific details until grants are awarded.
Here’s what I’m thinking of doing…let me know what you think. I think this scenario could almost apply to anyone, but I guess it depends on whether or not you send tax receipts all at the end of the year or when a donation is received.
Thank you letter -sent, ideally within two days of receiving a donation. In addition the points above, telling the donor when we will let them know how their gift made an impact but that also they will receive their tax receipt in January 2012.
Tax Receipt – sent January 2012. This looks just like our regular letter head but is perforated about 1/3 of the way down. The top piece thanks the donor for their support and gives specific details on how their gift made an impact and makes a quick reference that their tax receipt is below. The bottom piece has all the relevant tax information.
August 26th, 2011 at 10:01 am
On another note, do you prefer formal (Mr. & Ms.) salutaions or first name?
September 6th, 2011 at 7:30 am
Dear Jackie:
I like your idea for its creativity and for your thoughtful attempt to increase attention paid to results achieved with donations by enclosing the tax receipt in a later mailing. There are some drawbacks we have found in our research, but you may feel they are not significant enough to prevent you from testing your concept. Here is the information for what it’s worth:
• On the issue of sending tax receipts separately from thank you letters, I have had some negative comments about that from donors, especially donors whose year-end for tax purposes is not December 31st. We have also had critical comments from some donors about having to chase up organizations they have supported to get their receipt. For donors who support several not-for-profits, they need to keep on top of which ones send the receipt as soon as a gift is received and which ones wait till year-end. It adds another layer of administration to their philanthropy, something that not-for-profits may not fully appreciate.
• Since getting information on gift impact is the thing that donors say they want the most but get the least, that information will be noticed whether or not the receipt is also enclosed – in most cases. The exception concerns charitable organizations that solicit prolifically. Donors often mistake information mailings for another solicitation and don’t open the envelope.
Regarding salutation, donors’ opinions vary and, statistically, the younger the donor the more comfortable they are with being addressed by their first name. However, I tend to err on the side of caution and my rule is: address donors by their last names until invited to call them by their first names. Greeting someone by their last name is always respectful, if formal, whereas using donors’ first names before being invited is sometimes interpreted as presumptuous. I expect opinions among fundraisers vary widely on this issue.
- Penelope
September 6th, 2011 at 5:50 pm
For names, I always refer to Mr. or Mrs. X. If they are a donor I feel that I have enough of a relationship to call by their first name, I write “Bob” in beside the printed name in pen with an extra personal note. It gives that extra personal touch without being over-familiar as a rule.
September 18th, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Hi Penelope: as I said in a recent Linked-in conversation, I am a great devotee of yours & Donor-Centered Fundraising. My book is a rainbow of sticky flags because I found so much substance of value and I’ve incorporated into my work, so thank you! I’m sure you address this but wonder if you could reiterate and/or update your thoughts about WHO signs acknowledgement letters and respond to the fairly standard practice of assigning signers according to gift level? Clearly, it isn’t possible for the CEO of large orgs to personally sign every $25 donation letter and for some orgs, that CEO-worthy gift level can go as high as a 4-figure donation. With today’s technology, is it ok for the machine-generated CEO signature if it looks “real”? Or to have an internal policy that the CEO’s name can be signed by another person with the full approval of the CEO? This is probably too specific so the basic question would circle-back to: what’s the research on donors perception about who is acknowledging their gift & how impactful is that in their decision to renew their support? Thanks! Cathy
October 21st, 2011 at 3:29 pm
Dear Penelope,
I’m hoping you can clarify the thank you note/receipt combo idea versus a separate notes and receipts. Are you talking about major donors or large gifts? We are sending a letter from our VP with a separate receipt to donors of $1000 or more to give them an extra touch of stewardship. Those below $1000 (the marjority would be $1-$99) would get a hand-signed letter with attached receipt at the bottom. I know your earlier comment stated not to do this, but for a lower-level donor, and with a high-volume, we thought this would be best practice (and “greenest”) for us. Please advise.
Thank you.
November 28th, 2011 at 12:42 pm
In response to Cathy, I have been a CEO for several not-for-profits, including a larger sized United Way. At the latter, I personally signed every thank you letter and every charitable receipt that went out, no matter how small the donation – and there were 1000s. I often took them home at night to sign. On every donation over a certain dollar value,I included a personal note at the bottom. Often I would write a short note on all my letters, even though it took time, or I would cross out the Mr./Ms and put in a handwritten first name. Nothing is more important than the thank you. If a donor can take time to sign the cheque, I can take time to say thank you! As the senior exec, it gave me a personal connection to my donors and a feeling of gratitude that is missing when donors are just numbers on a spreadsheet.
January 4th, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Dear Penelope,
I am the new ED for a rare disease group. I would like to establish a protocol for thanking donors. I wonder if you recommend doing different things for different levels. For example, all receive a letter, but above $1,000 receive an additional handwritten note from the Chairman, and above $5,000 receive a phone call from the chairman… above $10,000 warrants a visit. Any advice on implementing this and should I be the one signing the letters? Right now, it is my assistant who signs the letters, but she is a mother who has lost a child to this disease and has a living child who suffers from the disease (though I’m not sure this is mentioned in the current letter!). Is it best to come from her as the mother or from me as the ED? Thank you!
March 11th, 2012 at 4:28 pm
[...] Penelope Burke posted on her blog the top 20 things to do when thanking donors. Some of the easiest, but most important things she said to do is to have the letter personally signed by the highest person in your organization. Include contact info, speaks to the donor but does not “sell” the organization. [...]
March 13th, 2012 at 9:23 pm
Thanks for the post! I think people really overlook the power of Thanking your donors. I recently just received an influx of donations for my organization and will definitely be using your tips. Many thing you highlighted can be done so easily yet it’s amazing how many people/organizations don’t utilize those tools.
August 9th, 2012 at 8:56 pm
[...] Burk’s classic 20 things that make a thank you letter superior and donor-centered, including not asking for another gift and or asking the donor to take any additional actions at [...]
February 13th, 2013 at 6:18 pm
[...] of trusted fundraisers point to the importance of thank you letters. Penelope Burk says that they are the first step to a next gift. Katya Andresen weighs in. Erica Mills has advice. [...]