Early on in my fundraising career, I learned a valuable lesson about thank-you notes. I had gone to work for an advocacy group working on women’s health issues. The organization was run collectively by two utterly overworked staff people and forty volunteers. The organization had won recognition for its work to expose and eventually remove from the market a dangerous birth-control device and for championing reproductive rights issues. Several months before I began working there, a woman who had read about the group’s victories in the newspaper sent $25. She did not receive a thank-you note. She did, however, receive the organization’s newsletter, and she heard about them from time to time. A year after making her gift, she received a form letter requesting a renewal. She threw it away.

Some time later, this woman learned that a friend of hers was a volunteer in the collective. “That group sounds good,” she told her friend, “but they don’t even have it together enough to send thank-you notes for gifts. I can’t imagine that they are really fiscally sound or that they use money properly.”

Her friend defended the organization: “We do really good work. We don’t send thank-you notes because we are too busy doing other stuff. It is not fair to conclude that we don’t use your money properly just because you don’t get an acknowledgment.”

The one-time donor replied, “It is fair. It is my only contact with them. They claim to want a broad base of support, yet they show no regard for their supporters. But since you vouch for them, I’ll give them something.” She sent $15. (As stressed throughout this book, please note the power of personal asking as demonstrated here.)

I was hired during the year between this donor’s $25 gift and her $15 one. I had been brought up in the school of thank-you notes, from thanking my grandmother for birthday gifts when I could barely hold a pencil to writing thank-you notes for every gift that came into the seminary where I had my first fundraising job. So without much thought, in response to this $15 gift, I sent this woman a scrawled three-line thank-you note: “Thanks for your gift of $15. It’s a help financially and also a great morale boost. We’ll keep in touch.”

Two weeks later, this woman sent $100. Again, I scrawled a thank-you note, with an extra line about her generosity. A few months later, she sent $1,500. I wrote another thank-you note and asked whether I could come and see her. She turned out to be both quite wealthy and very supportive of women’s rights. She told me that she usually gave relatively small initial donations to organizations to see how they would respond. She wanted to see how much regard they had for people giving small gifts. She said, “If I send $500 or $1,000, almost any organization will thank me. Many grassroots groups talk a good line about not making class distinctions and everyone being welcomed, but the only people they really care about are the program officers of foundations and wealthy donors.” She had decided to give money only to community-based organizations that had proven that they valued all gifts. I was flabbergasted that a sign of proof could be a sloppy three-line thank-you note, but for her it was better proof than a longer form letter with her name typed in, and certainly far better than no acknowledgment at all.

Since then I have seen over and over that a simple handwritten note or computer-generated thank-you letter with a personal note as a postscript can do more to build donor loyalty than almost any other form of recognition. Of all the things you send donors, the thank-you note is the one thing you can almost be certain the donor will read. Smart organizations use the thank-you note to describe briefly a program they are proud of or some recognition or victory they have achieved, and they add a personal element. The idea is to thank the donor, and to give that person an easy anecdote or interesting factoid that he or she might share with a friend or neighbor.

Unfortunately, thank-you notes tend to be one thing that organizations are sloppy or even thoughtless about. They either don’t send them, send them weeks late, or send a preprinted card or note with no personal note added. These practices are unjustifiable. Sending thank-you notes too easily falls far too low on people’s work priority lists. It has to be placed at the top—hence the title of this chapter.

PEOPLE NEED TO BE APPRECIATED

Beleaguered development directors often ask me why people like thank-you notes so much. Why don’t they like the action alerts or the website even more? There is far more content in those places, and a lot more money has been spent on those and other communication vehicles. Probably, reasons vary. Like the wealthy, testing donor, some see thank-you notes as a sign that the organization really does value all gifts. Others may just like to know that their gifts have been received. But most often, people like to feel appreciated, and while some highly enlightened types might be able to get by with the warm feeling that comes from doing the right thing, the majority of us lesser mortals want someone else to have noticed our good deeds. Thank-you notes are polite and gracious and, most of all, they are the right thing to do. (Moreover, for gifts greater than $250, an acknowledgment is required by law.)

Whatever the reasons, for fundraisers it is enough to know that donors value being thanked. Doing what donors like—as long as we stay inside the mission and goals of the organization—builds donor loyalty. A loyal donor is a giving donor and is likely to talk about the organization to his or her friends and colleagues. Donors who give are more likely to increase their gifts, as they can, as the years pass.

DON’T DO AS I SAY

What about the donor who claims not to want a thank-you note, or the one who even more strongly states that thank you’s are a waste of time and money?

The donor who claims not to want a thank-you note should nevertheless receive an e-mail or a thank-you call. Again, if the donor has given more than $250, you can explain that the acknowledgment is a legal requirement and one you are happy to comply with because you truly appreciate the gift. People who say they don’t want to be thanked are usually genuinely trying to save the organization time and money. You will have greater loyalty if you thank them anyway, using a different method than a written note sent by snail mail. When these donors say, “You shouldn’t have done that” or “That’s really not necessary,” they often mean “Thank you for taking the time. I can’t believe someone would bother to notice me.”

If the person who doesn’t like thank-you notes is also very close to your organization—perhaps a volunteer, board member, or someone who used to work there—you can combine your thank-you call with another function, such as to remind him or her of a meeting: “I called to thank you for your gift of $50. We put it right to work! You are so generous with all your resources. And speaking of which, I hope you can still come to the finance meeting this Wednesday at 7 at Marge’s.”

Overall, experience shows that, all else being equal, when you thank donors you are more likely to keep them, and when you don’t, you are more likely to lose them. Of course, there will be exceptions to this rule, but it is almost impossible to figure out who is really an exception and who is just pretending to be, so thank everyone and save yourself worrying about it.

DO IT NOW

How can you most efficiently thank your donors, and who should do it? Perhaps the most important rule about thanking donors is that no matter who is doing it—from the board chair to an office volunteer—gifts should be acknowledged promptly—ideally within three days of receipt, and certainly within a week in any circumstance. The official thank-you note coming from the office does not need to be signed by the person who knows the donor, but that person should be informed of the gift so that he or she can thank the donor personally. (Another note is not necessary—a call or e-mail will suffice.) If you are fundraising properly, you will also have dozens of donations coming in from people you don’t know. Volunteers and board members can send thank-you notes to these donors, under your supervision. Writing or personalizing computer-generated thank-you notes is actually a good way to involve board members who are resistant to asking for money in doing fundraising, and this activity counts toward their obligation to help raise money.

LOGISTICS AND CONTENT

I once received a call from an organization I like but to which I had never given. The caller was personable and enthusiastic. They were raising money for a great campaign, and I donated $100 right then. A few days later I received a form thank-you note that began, “Dear Friend” but “Friend” was crossed out and my name was written in. (This always makes me feel that I am not a friend, but that is a personal peeve of mine and does not apply to everyone.) The note said, “Thank you for your gift of $___” with a blank space where $100 had been written in. The final line of the note was, “No goods or services were exchanged for your gift,” followed by “Sincerely” and the name of the executive director. I felt a visceral letdown. What happened with the campaign? Did it even exist? Had I been duped? Was $100 just not enough to be worth one or two sentences about the campaign? In my experience, this is not an unusual occurrence—a great appeal is made and people donate. Then, instead of building on that enthusiasm, the organization dissipates it as quickly as possible with a thoughtless thank you.

Because the thank-you note is the only correspondence you can be certain a donor will read, it makes sense to spend time crafting interesting content for the thank you and having that content match the content of the appeal. Most database programs let you automatically generate thank you’s, and people forget to change the content of that programmed note. Even if the appeal is fairly general, the content of the thank-you note should be specific and should change every two months. In addition, if possible, add a personal note. People who give online get an automatic receipt, and the content of that can be changed also.

SAMPLE COMPUTER-GENERATED THANK-YOU NOTES

Here are some examples of changing content in a computer-generated letter. The first is great for giving donors an immediate sense of what kinds of things an organization like this needs to run properly:

THANK-YOU CALLS

Donors you are very close to, who give often, or who give you more than $250 in one gift should be called as soon as their money comes in and thanked personally. Generally, this will not take much time, as you will likely reach voice mail or an assistant. When leaving a message, do not say the amount of the gift—just say, “We received your donation today and just wanted to thank you so much! We are really close to our goal now. You’ll get a formal thank-you letter soon. Hope all is well.” If you reach the donor, don’t talk long: the message can be fairly similar to the one you would leave on voice mail. Some donors may be in the mood to talk, so call when you have a few minutes and can have a conversation. This is sometimes a nice way to get to know your donors without having a request for money as the motivation.

You can also call donors to thank them if you need to use the form thank-you letter mentioned above. The calls should be made by volunteers, who can generally call fifty donors in an hour. Even when they reach someone, they can say, “I don’t want to take too much of your time, but just wanted to thank you personally for your gift. You’ll be getting an acknowledgment in the mail as well.” A thank-you phone call allows you to skip writing personal notes on your form thank you’s and is quite effective.

COMMON QUESTIONS

There are three common questions remaining about thank-you notes:

Can We Thank People by E-Mail?

• If you regularly correspond with someone by e-mail, then it is acceptable to thank him or her this way. However, don’t use e-mail as a general practice. Someday e-mail (or whatever it becomes) may well replace all paper correspondence, but we are not there yet. As snail mail becomes less common, people actually value it more, so for the time being, use regular mail. (For gifts of more than $250, even if you are in regular contact by e-mail with the donor, you should send a thank you by snail mail to keep a paper trail.)

How Do You Address People You Don’t Know?

• The choices for salutation to people you don’t know are: first name only, first and last names (Dear Robert Park), or title (Dear Mr. Park). There is no clear right or wrong answer on this point and no way to avoid possibly offending someone. You will probably offend the least number of people by using titles: “Dear Mr. Fernandez” or “Dear Ms. Crawford.” (Certainly, you could write to the person according to how the person writes to you. A letter signed “Mrs. Alphonse Primavera” should be answered in kind. Ditto with people who use “Dr.” or “Rev.”) If there is ambiguity about whether the donor is a man or woman, you can write “Dear Friend.” If you live in a fairly casual community, you can use a first name, “Dear Terry” or “Dear Lynn.”
• Don’t waste a lot of time worrying about the salutation. Having received many thank you’s that say, “Dear Mr. Klein,” I know how off-putting it can be, but it does not cause me to stop giving to the organization. People who will stop giving you money because you (or anyone else) don’t know whether they prefers to be called by their first name, last name, Mr., Ms., or Mrs., is probably not going to become a regular donor anyway. Far more important is to make sure donors’ names are spelled correctly. People are far more attached to their names than to their honorifics.

Do All Donors Receive a Thank You?

• The answer is always yes. You have no idea how much a gift of $25 or $5 or $500 means to someone. You need to act as though you would like to receive that amount or more again. You also don’t know whether people use receiving a thank-you note to judge whether to continue giving to your organization. Why take a chance?

Keep up with thank-you notes as gifts come in. Each thank you is a link to the donor and, in addition to it being the right and gracious thing to do, you should see it as paving the way for the next gift.