The Do’s & Don’ts When Thanking Donors.

Does thanking donors really pay? Yes!

Remember the story of our Inner Circle member who after a class called ‘’Nurturing Donors’’ sent a thank you email to a past donor and guess the result? She received additional funds to scale up her existing project. Here are some of the strategies we recommended.

According to Penelope Burk’s donor survey, 90% of donors say that the thank you letter is the single most important and influential communication they ever receive from not-for-profits they support.

Here are some simple ‘’dos and don’ts’’ for thanking donors to guide you! We’ve got so much more to share but we know many of you will not read to the end so  here is a concise summary.

Do…

1. Be prompt, and accurate. Do not exceed 48 hours after the funds are received before saying thank you.

2. Personalize. Do NOT address the thank you  and all other donor communications to “Dear friend,” You have their name. Use it!

3. Be warm, and conversational. This is the time to be heartfelt and use emotion, not to be reserved and robotic. Do not copy and paste your emails.

4. Give the donor the credit and remove yourself as the middleman.  Never say “Thanks to you (org name) was able to…” Credit the donor with what the funds accomplished: “Because of you….” Or “Thanks to your gift, ___ is now_____”  or “Your gift immediately helped ______.”

5. Reflect on ‘’how will you make them look?  “Don’t (just) thank them for their donations, thank them for who they are.” Talk about their kindness, their compassion, how big-hearted they are, how caring they are, etc.

6. Avoid unnecessary grammar and flowery text. This is one thing our Inner Circle members know NOT to do!

Don’t…

1. Don’t start with “thank you” or “On behalf of the board, staff…” You can do better than that. You can start with “You just did a great thing” and so many more we keep for Inner Circle Members

2. Don’t recycle the same copy indefinitely.  You already get this.

4. Don’t continue to sell. The thank you is not the time to request for another funds. Any coach who tells you to do this, doen’t really want you to get funded. Keep it focused on making the donor feel a sense of pride, satisfaction, and deep appreciation.

If your organization’s internal process could use a makeover so you can get the international funding and visibility you deserve, Join the Inner Circle

Deadline to join is January 31^st.

Till then…. All the best!