Donor Communications | Fundraising Strategy
Two sentences. That’s what’s spared for the donor. Fifty percent of the front page is about asking for another gift. One hundred percent of the back of the sheet is information about the charity. (Is this so the mailing can be considered educational?)
Two sentences.
Don’t do this. Your donor is not an ATM. Your donor deserves some real gratitude.
[…] People, this is NOT a thank you! This is a poorly done appeal badly disguised as a gift acknowledgement. This is not a thank you. Two sentences. That’s what’s spared for the donor. Fifty percent of the front page is about asking for another gift. Don’t do this. By Mary Cahalane […]
[…] written about a few badly done gift acknowledgements, here and here. I didn’t want to shame the organizations, so I omitted their names. But after each […]
[…] People, this is not a thank you! […]
[…] A tax receipt isn’t a thank you. […]
Mary, how many organizations do you contribute to that you keep coming up with real examples of donor cultivation gone wrong? I’m terrified that you’ll donate to my organization and we’ll end up on your blog! 🙂
A good number, I guess. Honestly, it makes my husband happy to make donations. But I know you’d NEVER send me a thank you like that.
Is this for real, Mary? And if so, how is the charity still in business?
Yours aye
Charlie Marshall
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I’m afraid it’s very much real. A big disease charity… that we’ve been giving to for a very long time because of a personal connection a very long time ago. They get gifts because my husband’s a nice guy. Behavior like this would have cut them off if it was just me.
It’s amazing what a poor job some organizations do when they send out thank you letters. I recently received a thank you letter that’s a case study of what not to do. The organization sent it at least months after I made the donation, the salutation reads “Dear Friends:, it starts with “On behalf of X organization,” and the language is vague and impersonal.
We can do better.
Ugh. Yes, we definitely can! You’d think that even a very small organization might make up for being late with extremely personal letters… But most of the worst I see are from gigantic organizations. Maybe just me, but I don’t see any reason to give them a pass. Thanks for sharing that, Ann.
Terrible. It’s as sterile & impersonal as can be. Like the vampires who take 99% of every dollar they raise and have names that sound or look like better-name charities, they give everyone a bad name. Shame on them.
I do my research besides what I see every day in my job. There’s a lot of that going on. Not good at all.
Which makes me think that it maybe works in the short-term. Or is so cheap, they think it’s worthwhile? I cannot buy that this works in the long-term. At any rate, it’s very disappointing. Thanks Paul. I hope we start to see better!