Chapter 19 of my new book, Retention Fundraising, is devoted to “Easy Retention Wins for Everyone”.

Whether your organization is huge, tiny, or in between there are a number of universal donor experiences that are relatively easy and inexpensive to fix. Doing so will immediately help boost donor commitment and retention.

Retention Win #1: Say Thank You.

The art of saying thank you is one key to building real relationships. Unfortunately, it’s often ignored. Many organizations take weeks, sometimes months to acknowledge gifts. Others never get around to it.

Too many nonprofits view acknowledgements (the term alone speaks volumes) with a jaundiced eye. They see them as a cost center and a production pain.

As communications specialist Erica Mills puts it, “Acknowledging isn’t thanking. An acknowledgement doesn’t make the recipient feel warm and fuzzy about what they’ve done. It makes them remember that soon they’ll have to file taxes. That’s stressful, not joyful.”

My files and The Agitator Comments section are filled with notes from fundraisers who do understand the importance of the thank you process. They know it’s far more than simply some form of creative receipting.

Angel Aloma, the Executive Director of Food for the Poor writes:

 “Thank-you letters have been effective fundraisers for our organization. On average, we get more than one-fifth of our net income from them. We pay a lot of attention to the quality and strength of the letters and make sure they are tremendously donor centric. We don’t include any ask in the letter, but we do include an envelope and a reply piece.

“Among our highest donors, we tested two groups. At the beginning of the year we sent a sincere, simple thank you card to 25,000 donors for their past generosity—no ask, no reply piece, no envelope. The other group didn’t receive this. Both groups gave almost identical numbers of gifts that year, but the group that received the thank-you gave almost $450,000 more.”

Thank you’s are most effective when personal and relevant, as evidenced by this comment from Jessica Harrington, Senior Vice-President at Schultz & Williams:

“For one organization’s first renewal, we personalized the letter to the year the donor first joined and what was happening then. For example if the donor joined in 1980, she was supporting the organization’s Call to Halt the Arms Race. Or if a donor joined in 2008, she was supporting the counter-recruitment movement. We then showed key milestones the donor helped achieve since she first contributed.

 “We didn’t just pull out a date or reference a package—the customization was several paragraphs long and took the donor through the organization’s history and her recognizing that none of this could have happened without her.

 “Of course the key was linking the past accomplishments and donations to why her support was needed today.

“We think we did that. Revenue is up 54%.”

When it comes to showing thanks and appreciation to donors, an infinite amount of advice abounds. Some claim a highly personal thank you is essential. Others argue that a personal thank you isn’t nearly as important as getting something to the donor as quickly as possible.

The studies done by our sister company DonorVoice found donors themselves put a premium on timely thank you’s. A slight majority defined ‘timely’ as a note arriving within 48 hours, while an even larger majority indicated they wanted their gift acknowledged no more than a week after it was received.

A caveat on timeliness: quick thank you’s have become more the norm or so-called ‘best practice’ today. So just being fast, as in the use of an auto-responder for online contributions, won’t distinguish you. Nor will a quick and computer generated thank you, churned out and dropped in the mail that night.

I suggest you focus more on the ‘thank you’ part of the communication, stressing why the gift is appreciated, why it matters, and how it was put to work.

Because thanking donors is critical to retention, you’ll likely need to make some changes and compromises within your organization. For example, if your policy is to have the CEO sign and personalize thank you’s and the stack is piling up on her or his desk, then you’re betting on the wrong horse.

Strategically and operationally, any organization sacrificing timeliness for personalization – or vice-versa – should change course and figure out how to do both.

Roger

P.S. Here’s a list and links to resources you will find particularly helpful:

1. A case example. Pamela Grow of The Grow Report offered a lucky nonprofit a free analysis and recommendation from Thank You Guru Lisa Sargent. Take the time to read and learn from the “Before” and “After” analysis.

2. Lisa Sargent’s Thank You Letter Clinic. If you’re not aware of this wonderful resource on SOFII check it out. There are sample letters, more ‘before’ and ‘after’ illustrations and great stuff you can simply swipe.

3. Simone Joyaux’s and Tom Ahern’s recommendations, two of the most thoughtful folks on donor care and retention, can be found in their book Keep Your Donors. It belongs, well read and underlined, on your desk.

4. Now Say Thank You Nicely. A terrific post from the inimitable Ken Burnett that’ll help you, in Ken’s words, “Perfect your attitude of gratitude.”