Category: Thank

I have a theory you’ll probably agree with:

How well you thank a major donor has a big impact on whether they give you additional gifts in the future, and how large those gifts will be.

If you agree, keep reading. Because we’re about to share what we’ve learned over the years about Thanking major donors. We’ll talk about the tactics to use, and about the message you want to convey.

Jim Shapiro, my partner in crime here at Better Fundraising, taught me most of this. And even though it’s really simple, I’m going to break it down into easy steps.

Thank a major donor five times

Why five? Because you want your major donor to feel that their gift really mattered. Not “know” their gift matters. That’s a simple fact that they probably already know (especially if you’re a local charity). That can be communicated with a receipt and a thank you note.

You want to do more. Because your goal isn’t your donor knowing. Your goal is for them to feel your gratitude and appreciation. And you need multiple touches for that.

By the way, you don’t have to do any of these things. You can not even acknowledge gifts and some donors will keep giving to you. But why leave it up to chance? Most of the steps below don’t take much time and can make a big difference over time . . .

The easy three ways to thank a major donor

These are simple to do. Every single organization should be doing these. Think of them as ‘a cost of doing business’ if you want to keep your major donors giving to your organization.

1. Call and say Thank You. Have the highest-ranking person available in your organization call within 24 hours of receiving any gift from a major donor or that qualifies for major donor status. It doesn’t have to be a long call, in fact they are usually less than 5 minutes. But call them.
2. Send a receipt. Send a printed receipt within 24 to 48 hours. Pro Tip: if the gift is a major gift or from a major donor, have your ED write a note on the receipt before it goes out.
3. Send a Thank You note. Use a Thank You card from Hallmark, or a special branded card from your organization that you use only for this. You want this to feel special, and have it not look like what you normally send.

The tougher two

OK. You’ve done the Easy Three ways to thank a major donor. But you want to do a couple more things over the next few weeks to communicate now that you’re looking at this as a relationship, not a transaction.

There is no ‘one perfect thing’ for every organization. But here are two themes to follow. Try to do one of each theme each time a major donor makes a gift. And you’ll notice that the key here is that they are personal; either personal from the person doing the Thanking, or personal for the donor . . .

1. A personal Thank You from someone at the organization. What you’re trying to do here is have someone important (either high-ranking or a beneficiary) communicate their Thanks to the donor. :
   1. Make and deliver a handmade gift. We have an ED who makes cookies for her donors. We have a CEO who makes pies for his donors. We used to work with an organization where the MGO hand-made wooden pens for his donors.
   2. Have a beneficiary write a thank you note, and send that note to your donor. We’ve seen kids at camp, hospital patients, students, and beneficiaries of all kinds write thank you notes to donors.
2. A personal value-add to the donor’s life. If you know your donor has a specific interest (a sports team, model trains, the Arts, etc.) you can send them something about their interest. At the end of the note, say something like, “…and thank you again for your incredible gift!”

Main messages missing?

There are two powerful messages you should communicate when you thank a major donor. Most organizations completely miss these — but donors LOVE hearing them.

Tell her that her gift was needed. Most organizations are not good at being vulnerable with donors, and a byproduct of that is that most organizations rarely communicate to donors that their gifts are needed. But donors love to know that their gift was needed because it makes them feel great about giving the gift!

How great do you feel when you help a friend who says, “Oh! That was exactly what I needed!”?

Tell her that her gift is going to make a difference. Most organizations, in their receipt letters and thank you notes, don’t actually say that the donor’s gift is going to make a difference. They say things like “Thanks for joining our mission…” and “Thank you for your partnership! Our programs are the best of their kind in the region…”

Remember that she gave a gift to make a difference, so tell her that she’s going to make a difference! (And then later, Report back to her to show her the difference she helped make and “close the loop.”)

So I would include a sentence that says something like, “Mary, your gift couldn’t have come at a better time! It was needed. It’s going to make a difference, and I can’t wait to get in touch with you in a couple of months to show your impact to you!”

Listen to her

Of course, if your donor says not to contact her, honor her. If she doesn’t want to be in relationship with you outside of her giving, pay attention. If she wants to be anonymous, let her stay that way.

But don’t assume any of those things. Assume she’d love to be well-thanked. 1 in 25 times that will put you in an awkward situation. 24 out of 25 times that will make you more likely to get another (and larger) gift from the person.

Relationship, not transaction

Relational Thanking is showering your major donors with personal touches so that they feel your gratitude.

Transactional Thanking is a receipt, a mention in the annual report, and a request for a larger gift 11 months from now.

Each of your major donors have LOTS of choices for where they can give their next gifts. Which type of organization would you rather give to? One that communicates through their actions that majors donors are small cogs in a big machine, or one where donors feel like their gift was needed, appreciated, and is going to make a difference?

 

If you’re a small nonprofit, embrace it. Use it to your advantage. Especially when you are thanking your donors.

Here’s how to take advantage of your smallness and local-ness to Thank your donors in powerful ways.

Hand-write Thank You notes to Every Donor

Say you have 200 donors. You can send a handwritten thank you note to every single one of those donors. The vast majority of your donors will never have received a handwritten thank you note from a nonprofit before, let alone one signed by the Executive Director or a Board Member. You’ll make a big impression. And your chances of retaining that donor just skyrocketed.

Mention That You Are Local

I read recently that an increasing percentage of donations are moving from large, national charities to smaller, local orgs. That’s great news for you, and means that you should be mentioning your local-ness in your fundraising.

Let me give you a couple of examples:

• Say you’re helping local middle-school kids improve their math skills. You should mention local middle schools by name and neighborhood. Say things like, “Your gift is going to help kids at Kennedy, and at McLure in North Ballard. These are local kids you’re helping. You see them playing on the soccer fields you drive by. And the next time you drive by, they are going to be better at math — thanks to you!”
• This works even if you’re helping people on the other side of the world. You can say things like, “Thank you! You are supporting a small, local organization with an international impact. We’re located just South of downtown, over by the old brewery. We all live around here, and we love helping you make the world a better place.”

Do you get the idea? Do you see how rooting your organization in a place that the donor knows makes you more familiar and trustworthy? That’s a big deal (and getting bigger).

Show Her How Important She Is

If you only have a few hundred donors, every donor you have is more important to you than she is to the big national organizations she also gives to. Have you told her that?

Tell her by thanking her! Say things like, “[NAME], it’s you and about 250 other generous, compassionate people that make this organization go. You make it possible. So when I tell you that you’re an important part of what we’re doing, I mean it. You are a big deal to me, and your support has a big impact.”

If your donors are a big deal, by all means tell them they are a big deal! Too many small, local nonprofits get stuck trying to communicate as if they are a big organization. And they miss the beauty and power of their smallness.

Elbow Grease and Shoe Leather

We have a client where the executive director (a man, by the way) bakes pies and delivers them to top donors. We’ve worked with organizations that hand-deliver thank you cards from beneficiaries, crafts from Africa, hand-made pens, even a jug of home-brewed beer. Those kind of touches that can make a big impact.

The ‘National Big Disease That Your Uncle Has Foundation’ isn’t doing that for their donors, my friend! And when you do it for your donors, they will notice.

Good old-fashioned elbow grease and shoe leather will take you a long way.

If You Have A Few Too Many Donors For This . . .

Maybe you have 2,000 donors and can’t treat everyone this way. You can sure treat your major donors this way. Jim says this all the time: figure out how many people your human resources will allow you to give the special treatment to, start with your most valuable donor, and work down from there.

In Closing

If you’re a small, local nonprofit, your goal should be to act like the local hardware store that’s friendly and knows everybody by name. Don’t try to be Nordstrom’s. For one, you don’t have the resources or budget to pull it off. You can’t, and donors can smell it. Second, there already IS a Nordstroms! Be yourself. Embrace your strengths.

If you do this stuff, you’ll run circles around the really big nonprofits.

Because listen, most donors out there want to know two things: that their gift makes a difference, and that their gift matters. Embracing your smallness, especially when you’re Thanking, is one of the very best ways you can really show your donors that they and their gifts matter.

I’d like to propose a benediction for Fundraisers. The close of one year and the open of another seems like a perfect time, no? I shared this with our email list members a few weeks ago thought you would enjoy it.

This is unabashedly based off a poem by Teresa of Avila (1515–1582).

Donors Have No Programs

Donors have no programs but yours.
They have strong hearts, but no body that helps people.

Yours is the mouth that tells donors of the ills of the world,
Yours are the feet that take her to where she can see the need,
Yours are the eyes that help her see what needs to be done,
Yours are the hands that do what needs to be done.

Yours is the Body, that makes it all possible.
Hers is the Generosity, that makes it all possible.

Fundraiser! Yours is the responsibility to Ask for her help,
And the responsibility to Report on her successes.

How much more good can she do with you, than without?
How much more joy can she have with you, than without?
For she has no programs on earth but yours.

My friend, may you have an incredible 2018. Fundraising is the best job in the whole world.

Today I’m excited to share Episode #103 of the Fundraising Is Beautiful podcast that I host with Jeff Brooks. In this episode, we discuss why nonprofits should avoid using the word “partner” as a verb, the importance of a thank you letter, and the necessity of focusing on what the donor did rather than their relationship to your organization. Enjoy!

Play Episode #103: The right way — and wrong way — to thank your donors.

Wanted to let you know about something special that’s happening this month . . .

Introducing Thankuary

We’re taking plain old January and turn it into Thankuary. It’s a whole month to help you and your nonprofit shower your donors with gratitude.

Two reasons:

1. Your donors deserve it. They gave you gifts last year out of pure generosity! Do you know if they feel your gratitude? They sure deserve to. And personally, I think there’s a moral imperative to Thank and Thank well. (It might not be a moral imperative, but it sure was my Mama’s imperative!)
2. It will help you raise more money in 2018. Thanking well is the very first step towards retaining a donor and making them more likely to give additional gifts. Just one data point for you: Leah Eustace from Blue Canoe Philanthropy showed that a 3-minute Thank You call raises donor retention by 10%. And, Thanking is part of the Virtuous Circle.

Here’s What We Propose

You take the month of January and intentionally Thank your donors with emotion and focus.

We know you have other stuff to do, too. We get it.

So to help, we’re going to spend January talking about the most effective ways to Thank your donors. You’ll get step-by-step instructions. Great ideas. Guest posts. Sample sentences and paragraphs you can steal.

If you think you do a fantastic job Thanking your donors, that’s great. I hope you’ll comment and share what’s worked for you.

How Thankuary Started

A couple of years ago we were working with an organization that swore up and down that they Thanked their donors well. So I looked through all of their receipts and thank you letters.

The first receipt letter I looked at began with this sentence:

“Recently our entire staff went on a retreat.”

That, my friends, is not the best way to start your receipt letter. What in the world were they thinking about Thanking where that sentence seemed like a good idea?

Fast-forward to last month we were meeting with another client. We were talking about spending January making sure their donors knew how important they were to this organization. (Is that something you should do for your organization?)

I said, off the top of my head, “Let’s call it Thankuary!”

And after much rejoicing, Thankuary was born.

So, Thankuary begins today. Stay tuned for our best advice on how you can Thank well, start your year off with some real donor love, and be on your way to a successful 2018!

Note from Steven: This is a guest post from Lisa, an experienced Development Director who is on the Better Fundraising team.

Your receipt letters are arguably the most-opened, most-read piece of mail (or email) you’ll ever sent to your donors. Are you giving them the attention they deserve?

When I started as the Director of Development at a local non-profit, the first thing I looked at was the receipting process. Why? Because the receipt letter was the first ‘touch’ a donor would receive after sending in their gift.

What I found was an organization that loved their donors but didn’t know how to thank them. It was common practice to hold on to the receipts until there were enough to mail at a bulk rate. This meant some donors were being asked for another gift BEFORE they had been thanked for their first one.

The receipts letters were generic so they could be used year around. There was no acknowledgment of the donor’s actual gift amount, or what their gift was used for.

Put on your “donor hat” for a moment. How would you feel about receiving a generic receipt after you’ve been asked again?

I would probably look somewhere else to donate my charitable dollars. And I believe many of their donors did.

So simply saying “thank you” IS NOT enough.

Better Fundraising understands the importance of saying thank you and how to say it well. It is part of their “virtuous circle” and the Ask, Thank, Report, Repeat system.

So what does it mean to thank donors well?

• Let them know you received their gift in a timely fashion. Ideally, within 2-3 business days after you received their gift.
• Be sincere and emotional in your thank letter. True gratitude shines through a well-written thank you.
• Let them know what their gift was used for. For example, if you asked them to give a gift provide food and shelter, thank them for providing food and shelter.

And the thank yous don’t need to stop here! You can thank donors multiple times for their gift. By phone, text, online, at an event, a hand-written note. You can also develop a different thank you strategy for your mass, mids and major donors.

Thanking donors well should be part of your organization’s culture. If it’s not, start today!

To learn more about thanking donors (especially important this time of year!) watch Jim and Steven’s video on saying “Thank You.”