No “Thank You”!
We have met the Wizard of Oz, and not only is he just another poor slob, he wears no clothes!
Here is a ‘must read’ blog post by Chuck English at Marketing That Works … regarding Thank You’s.
Chuck started out by posing what I know he expected would be a question with a very straightforward and conclusive answer:
“Does saying thank you really make a difference? Do you know of a research study that proves that thanking donors will lead to further or increased donations?”
Now, how many times has it been drilled into you that OF COURSE you must acknowledge contributions … AND THE SOONER THE BETTER!!
So, like Chuck, I’ll be you would have expected his e-mailbox to fill up overnight with reports describing all sorts of actual testing that confirmed this proposition.
WRONG!
It appears no one has any empirical evidence that thanking donors, promptly or otherwise, makes the slightest difference in terms of lifting future giving (or at least no one is sharing it).
As Chuck reports in his terrific article, various of us cite simple human nature (sure, everyone likes to be thanked, don’t they), or survey research where donors say they appreciate being appreciated or say they would be more likely to give again if well-thanked.
Indeed Chuck’s original query was prompted by survey results he saw where 52% said that not receiving a thank you would not decrease their livelihood of giving in the future. How many of us have watched focus groups where donors say: “I don’t want them wasting my donation on a thank you letter!”?
But so far, no one has proffered Chuck hard evidence that donors thanked give more than donors not thanked!
C’mon all you consultants out there … confess now.
All these years you’ve been telling clients how important it is to acknowledge gifts, promptly. But perhaps the only thing certain is that this advice helps generate more creative and mailing fees for all those thank you and welcome packages!
So what empirical evidence is that advice based on? Any?
Or is it just based upon ‘common sense’? The same common sense that might ‘establish’ that donors are busy and will respond better to shorter letters? Or that $35 a year donors won’t make bequests?
Chuck, it looks like you caught us all naked, or at least with our pants down!
But I’m disappointed that despite the shocking absence of evidence, even you caved in with this conclusion:
“I’d bet that organizations that give serious thought to the experience of being thanked see a great lift in gift frequency and amounts.”
In other words, “We don’t know if it matters … let’s just do it better anyway and hope for the best.”
Just when I was about to give you an Agitator raise!
Tom
19 responses to “No “Thank You”!”
Behavioral Science Q & A
Integrating an individual giving appeal with other communications from a charity can have both positive and negative effects, and the outcome largely depends on how it’s executed. Advantages of Integration Brand Consistency: Maintaining a consistent appearance and messaging across all communications can reinforce the org’s brand identity and strengthen brand recognition and trust among your […]
Read Full Answer
I’m not aware of any in-market tests specifically comparing recurring vs. gift frequency language. I suspect the answer might not be the same with all gift frequencies, nor with all people. It sounds like a great opportunity for you to test and find out what works for your audience. Based on the literature, here’s a couple […]
Read Full Answer
Based on what we know from existing data, those renewal notices can actually be pretty effective in getting people to donate. They tap into our psychology – creating a sense of urgency, reminding us of past support, and using personalization to make the message hit home. They’re playing on our natural tendencies to feel obligated […]
Read Full Answer
Interesting question. I had a quick look at the testing done on this topic. On the positive side, in all cases, over half of donors decide to cover the fee. In some cases, it goes as high as 65%. Not a negligible percentage at all. Here’s another test from iRaiser showing consistent results (see point […]
Read Full Answer
There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]
Read Full Answer
I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
Read Full Answer
I have seen a campaign where calling regular supporters without a fundraising ask has led to an increase in retention and lifetime value; but it’s not just the act of saying “thank you” that’s key, there’s so much more that needs to be demonstrated to make a thank you contact really beneficial. I’d wager that a very simple “thank you” letter would have relatively small impact in increasing future donations, but if it also clearly shows the value of the gift, and demonstrates to the supporter that there are shared benefits to maintaining a relationship, that’s when your thank you works.
I also think as a sector we should stop referring to “thank yous” and start thinking about them instead as engagement pieces and a way to give something back to the supporters. This year it feels like there’s going to be a big shift in this direction so I have no doubt you will soon have the empirical data you’re after!
This isn’t empirical evidence, but I’ve gotten many a compliment on sending out prompt acknowledgement. One discerning donor once introduced me as “the only Development Director who knows how to send out a thank you note.” I occasionally get requests from donors not to thank them for their donation, which of course I honor. I’ve never gotten a complaint from someone who didn’t request one, but got one.
In Donor Centered Fundraising, Penelope Burk cites specific testing of new donors who received prompt thank you calls that resulted in higher retention rates and higher giving after one year. I’m not putting my hands on book in my library or I’d quote the study exactly, but Gail Perry recounts some of the data on her blog at
http://www.gailperry.com/2010/05/how-to-increase-donations-by-39/
For twenty-five years, I have been a fundraiser and if I ever wrote a book about my career, it would be called “My Life in Thanks” because that is where I spend much of my time… in saying thank-you. But saying thank-you should not be motivated by wondering if it will lead to another, possibly even bigger gift. We say thank-you because compassion, generosity, philanthropy are worthy of gratitude. It is sad indeed that we would forego genuine appreciation for nothing more than a strategic next step in the solicitation of another gift.
You run into all sorts of problems with memorial giving if you don’t thank donors. It has more to do with them wanting to know that acknowledgment has been sent to the family as opposed to the Thank You itself imo. Could you seperate the two, and just send a confirmation? Perhaps. But then you couldn’t tell the family of the deceased that all donors have been thanked by the organization.
I know this from first hand experience. When TY letters are delayed even by a week or two, you start hearing from the memorial donors.
My experience is that a prompt thank you letter and receipt with an attached bounceback coupon and enclosed reply envelope generates close-to-free money. One-quarter to one-third of the bouncebacks came back with a gift that was about 10% higher (on average) than the average direct mail gift. I never tested it, but did determine (statistically) that about 75% of this money was “new money,” not reallocated, based on the year-over-year income growth from existing donors of one employer when we implemented this strategy. I wouldn’t risk not thanking my donors!
As one of those people who advocates quick and quality thank yous, I think demanding quantitative proof that they are needed before you invest in doing them well is a bit of a stretch.
Shall we wait for a quantitative study on whether we really need to run spell check and use proper grammar in appeal letters before we bother with all of that? I think not.
I’m all for testing and learning what works better and being results oriented. But in terms of priorities, I think there are LOTS of other things I would focus on testing before I got to “should we send a thank you?”
There is also an important distinction between a slightly prettied up receipt and a more personal communication that is really part of a bigger donor communications strategy. When we ask if people need/want a “thank you” I suspect many of them are saying that they don’t want the former.
Thanks for continuing to agitate!
Kivi
I agree with those who land on the side of thanking donors. Aside from the etiquette involved, I think most donors want to know that the effort they exerted to send a check or donate on line is worth a simple thank you. In addition, a well-written thank you note has the ability to convey how important a donor is to the day-to-day accomplishments of your organization. It is your chance to share a small vignette – provide a “peek behind the curtain” that might reveal what a wizard your organization actually is when it comes to changing lives.
I tell my clients that if they don’t (or can’t) take the time to send a personalized letter, then to the form letter – they can add a brief handwritten sentence or two, with their signature. You’d be surprised what warmth that can add, strengthening your donor communications strategy!
Thanks,
Kate
Wait, Chuck English is up-in-arms against good manners because 534 Canadians disagreed with the, incredibly confusing, statement that “not receiving a thank-you message would decrease their likelihood of giving in the future”?
And then dismisses two studies possibly to the contrary without providing links or the name of the study so we can follow up?
First: A definition – for the purpose of this comment, when I say ‘not thanking’ I mean not sending a stand alone thank you without an ask. I am not saying never say thank you in appeals or other communications.
Long term cohort data testing, that is not US based, is really hard to come by to prove whether your should thank or not. Also, the US data I have seen (which proves that from a mass direct mail point of view, there simply is no point or gain sending separate thank yous) does not come with enough evidence of what those charities are doing about bequests/legacies or major donors.
In the US, incredibly cheap print, list purchase, postage and mailhouse costs mean that to some extent, some charities dont need to worry about anything other than mail, mail and mail again.
However, here in Australia, it costs up to three times as much than in the US to get a mailpack in the post, and charities with unlimited budgets would still struggle to find enough people to mail to run programs with 300,000 donors. So it is difficult for charities to rely on just ‘big DM’.
Consequently, I think both sides of the argument here are correct. A hybrid approach is needed, which is based on the best evidence you can get – direct, measurable from the DM program and anecdotal, specific examples from major donor / bequest relationship fundraising approaches.
Here is a real case study.
A charity I have been working with over the past few years embarked on a mass donor acquisition program, using premiums, which has added 29k premium donors in six acquisition mailings, averaging around 4% or so from cold, bought lists. They have acquired those donors at slight profit (which is awesome).
Premium mailings tend to get a very ‘flat’ Pareto return – in other words it takes much more than 20% of people to donate 80% of the income. Even so, 962 donors (3.3%) gave 20% of the income, around $220k. So these top 3.3% of donors gave an average of $220 as compared to the rest, who gave $880k – an average of $31 each. The overall average was $38. (NB – that stat alone show the danger of only really considering mean average donations).
So, in terms of thanking, the US data indicates to me that the charity should probably not bother thanking about 28k of the 29k new donors.
I utterly disagree with people that thanking is a moral obligation – if there is evidence that doing so will decrease the total charity net income, then the moral obligation is NOT to thank. You are not employed to be nice, you are employed to maximise your charity net income in the long term.
In the absence of holistic, empirical data with an understanding of the context is seems to me that common sense kicks in. To be honest, for this charity I imagine it is marginal whether you should thank those 28k donors or not. My advice will be to test that over at least a year, maybe no thank yous to one cohort, normal thank yous to another and the final one with thank yous with asks in them.
However, for the other 962 donors, it seems that thanking should be a matter of course, including phone calls and visits where appropriate. Our research shows that bequests from donors are most likely to come from higher value donors who do feel they have a relationship with the charity, as do higher value donations. Thanking helps create occasions for major donor and bequest people to begin relationships with these high value donors and there is tons of evidence that personal, one to one relationships with high value donors and bequest prospects is worth.
My common sense conclusion is that many of the ideas, and certainly the spirit of apprach portrayed in Relationship Fundraising in the early 90s are completely justified with enough anecdotal evidence for high value donors.
But, like you, I am not convinced either way on the other 95% of donors.
Donor Voice survey refers to timeliness as one of the 7 keys to retention based on their surveys.
http://www.thedonorvoice.com/timeliness-of-thank-yous-or-personalization-if-forced-to-choose-which-should-you-definitely-do/
Mark, reading the article referenced, I’ve got to agree with you. He cites one Canadian study, with (as you say) a very confusing question. In addition, it’s a question about *intent*, not a study on *results*. They can certainly differ.
However, I do agree with the author that how the acknowledgement is done is very important. Like all donor communications, if your thank you is canned and uninspired, your donors are not likely to receive it happily. So don’t send uninspired communications, period.
For goodness’ sake, Agitators. Tell me you aren’t taking survey results as meaningful donor behavior research! That study is the very model of misused, bogus qualitative research that gives the exact wrong answer. You’ve been direct marketers long enough to know better than to call survey research meaningful evidence!
My experience with thanking donors is much like the many other commenters here: Time after time after time, I’ve seen improved thanking (more relevant content and faster) lead to meaningful and quick improvements in donor retention. I once saw a case where a technical glitch caused receipts to be delayed by a few weeks. This lasted about three months, but the drop in retention was steep and lasted longer than the glitch did.
It’s very clear, prompt, quality thanking of donors is a smart thing to do. And not doing it — even if a few hundred Canadians said you can — is likely to be a painful disaster.
Are we discounting Penelope Burk’s research on this topic?
For heaven’s sake have we all lost our manners? I agree with Kivi Miller and others. When someone gives you a gift you say, “Thank you.” It really doesn’t matter if it causes them to give more or not, it’s simply the right thing to do, or at least it used to be back when we used to teach manners.
But clearly, some thank you’s stand out more than others which probably has more to do with the cultivation of a philanthropic relationship than the simple act of saying “thank you.”
When I read your “No Thank You!” post this morning I saw red.
Quoting focus groups (because everyone knows donors do exactly what they say they will do, especially when they say it in focus groups!) … proclaiming the “only thing certain is that this advice helps generate more creative and mailing fees for all those thank you and welcome packages” (and everyone knows we nonprofit creatives just rake in the dough, boy doggy. Perhaps consider instead that most of us could double or treble our salaries in B2B or B2C direct response via royalties and increased fees)…
For shame!
If a nonprofit has a Relevant, Anticipated and Timely reason to reach out to a donor (i.e., saying ‘thank you’ for a gift the donor made), why on earth should they hesitate? Simply because there’s no “study” that proves thanking donors lifts results and/or donations?
Puh-lease. When did we have to prove that doing the right thing is worth doing?
Still and all, I will attempt to prove it… with the help of my much-beloved client, Merchants Quay Ireland (MQI), and their genius Head of Fundraising, Denisa Casement, who graciously agreed to share some results.
She astutely points out that, “maybe there is no head to head testing because only an idiot would risk withholding Thank-Yous from a significant portion of their donor file. But we do have year on year evidence that includes everyone in our database, Current & Lapsed.”
Here it is:
In 2009, MQI’s Christmas appeal received a response rate of 19%. At this time, the organization had no admin staff and thank you letters took between 4-6 weeks to send… that was if they were mailed at all. There was no donor newsletter that thanked donors or reported back to them on how their gifts were used.
In 2010, MQI hired admin staff. Time to mail thank-yous decreased to just 2-3 days from receipt of gift. In addition, they improved the creative on their (No-Ask) donor thank you letter, had the CEO hand-sign each one, sent a newsletter 3 times annually, and added a new donor welcome pack.
Their 2010 Christmas appeal response rate, in one of Ireland’s worst-ever economic climates? 32%.
Before you argue that they are a one-hit wonder, consider that in 2011, the new Christmas appeal again received a 32% response rate… in an economy none would call rosy.
Is it a result of the thank-you letters only? Maybe not. But I would posit that they played a significant role – especially given the number of MQI supporters who take the time to ring the organization’s fundraising office to say thank-you for the thank-you, and that the letter moved them to tears.
I do not debate the excellence of Chuck E.’s original post. Someone should be asking the tough questions, always. But as Mr. English ultimately points out, perhaps the real issue is that many donor thank-yous are such an automated afterthought, no thank-you at all is better than insincere, cookie cutter rubbish (my adjectives, not his).
So, Tom, I implore you.
Talk about the merits of Ask or No-Ask (or better yet, enlist Pareto’s Sean Triner). Talk about dispensing with boilerplate, on-behalf-of-blah-blah-blah thank you letters. Talk about creative ways to say thank you.
But please don’t talk about donor thank-you letters as optional – or as not worth the investment – as if expressing genuine gratitude, and showing common courtesy (especially to older donors!) is something that must be “empirically proven” before being deemed worthwhile.
You’re sending the wrong message to Boards and nonprofit executives everywhere.
Thanks for reading my rant. Your still-faithful Agitator follower,
Lisa Sargent
Just sayin’ but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The common sense and best practices most fundraisers follow, while common, are often not the best. There is very little research and empirical data to support most of what is recommended to do. I have often and repeatedly found value in breaking from fundraising tradition to go beyond best practices.
Finding that thank you letters do not increase the rate of giving would not surprise me. On the other hand, there are business studies that show that asking customers what they want is a bad predictor of what their true needs and buying motivations. In short, customers do not know why they behave the way they do. I expect the same is true of donors and their own motivations.
While an intriguing finding, fundraiser beware when interpreting and using any findings from studies. The real answer is often much more complex than a single study can reveal.
Does it really matter if they thank you for your donation? I wouldn’t think so. To me, I’m going to contribute if I want to contribute and believe in a certain cause. I’ve pretty much already talked myself into donating and a cheap thank you isn’t going to make a difference in the future.