Deepen Donor Relationships With a Power-Packed Thank You Letter

The Thank You letter often is created and sent without much thought. It may seem to be the last step in getting a gift from a donor and a habit task that warrants puny merit. But it's truly the first step in securing the next gift!

Purposeful and well-thought out Thank You letters can help you steward your donors, not to mention contribute you with an additional one way to report with them. Make sure you are getting the most from your Thank You letter efforts with these ideas.

Thank You Letters

1. Get the letter out promptly.

Deepen Donor Relationships With a Power-Packed Thank You Letter

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The faster you get your Thank You letters out the door, the better. Donors want to be sure that you received their gift and a Thank You letter is the best way to let them know it arrived safely. Experts say that you should let no more than 48 hours go by from the time you receive a gift until the time you put a the Thank You letter in the mail. If it takes you a puny longer and that's the best you can do, work with it. Outline out what will work for your assosication and put a priority on getting the letters out the door.

2. report your Thank You letter to the Ask.

Instead of sending out a generic letter, customize your Thank You letter to the specific ask that was used to create the gift. If a gift comes to you from an request for retrial you sent out, then make sure your Thank You letter refers back to the story or the text in the appeal. You may need to write some dissimilar letters that can be used for anyone you have going on. For instance, you may want to write one letter for a extra event you are working on, an additional one one for monthly givers, and an additional one one for donors who sass to your newsletter. Relating the Thank You letter back to the ask is a way to let your donors know you are paying concentration and that you are organized adequate to use their money they way you said you would.

3. Tell the donor how you will use their money.

This is critical. Make sure the donor knows how you plan to use the donation he or she just sent you. Text like "Your gift will ensure that 15 children will go to summer camp for one week" makes the process of donating more real and tangible to the donor. They can envision 15 kids going to camp for a week and it helps create a bigger feeling of satisfaction for the donor.

4. Use a real signature.

Digital signatures are easy and eliminate hand signing a stack of letters. But technologically-savvy donors know the distinction in the middle of a digital signature and a live one. Have your President or administrative Director sign the letters, or ask a volunteer to sign them on his or her behalf. And use a blue pen so that donors can clearly tell it is a real signature.

5. Add personal notes to the letters.

Have your administrative Director or President go straight through the letters and add personal notes. This can bring big rewards in terms of stewarding donors! Taking a few minutes of a busy day to go straight through a stack of letters may seem like a chore to your boss, but donors who get a Thank You letter with a personal note will be thrilled that the head staff someone took the time to personally sass his or her gift.

6. Include a reply envelope.

Don't be afraid to Include a reply envelope in a Thank You letter. Many donors will hang onto these and use them for their next gift. You may receive some negative feedback, but you will likely receive a large amount of gifts as well. It's not uncommon to receive thousands of dollars in gifts from these "bounce-back" envelopes. You may want to code these envelopes so that you can track the number, size, and amount of donations received using this technique.

At one assosication I worked for, I all the time put reply envelopes in my Thank You letters. I coded them like this: Ty807 with Ty for Thank You letter, 8 for August or the month the letter went out and 07 for the fiscal year. I would create colse to ,000 per year just straight through these envelopes. I also found that citizen who consistently used them were good candidates for the monthly giving club.

7. Include cumulative giving data.

Hopefully you have this data in your donor tracking software and can get to it easily. Sometimes donors forget when they last gave. Together with year to date data can be a diplomatic reminder for them if they have pledges or commitments to make.

8. Make it clear that the letter is also a receipt.

Don't you hate getting boring thank you letters that drone on and never clearly spell out the gift you made? (By the way, if you aren't giving to other organizations, you need to. It's a great way to put yourself in the donor's shoes and also lets you see how other organizations handle the thank you process.) If you have to, draw a line on the page below the thank you text and put "Gift Receipt" about the actual gift information.

9. Include an offer to tour your premise or program site.

Always Include in your letter an offer for a guided tour of your premise or program site (if appropriate). You may never have anyone take you up on this, but they will remember that you offered. You will probably get a few citizen who want to visit you. Seeing firsthand the work that you do may make all the distinction in the world to a single donor. It can also mean the distinction in an mean size gift and a major gift.

I remember one single donor who came for a tour of my assosication with his wife. They had all the time been good givers and commonly gave about ,000 a year. They were so impressed by the tour that they wrote a check on the spot for an additional ,000!

10. Include the name and palpate info of someone the donor can call with questions.

Donors want to be able to call and talk to a real, live, knowledgeable someone when they have questions. So be sure to Include the name and phone amount in your Thank You letters of someone who can sass questions for them.

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