Female Fundraising Charity Auctioneers
  • HOME
  • Services
  • Videos
  • ABOUT
    • Press
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Freebies
  • Contact

The Worst Donor Thank You Ever

8/23/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Recently, I received an email from an organization that I give to regularly. Ostensibly this was a thank you email, but you wouldn’t know it. I considered including the email in this post, but I don’t want to embarrass the party that sent it.

The email in question was over 300 words long, and “thank you” appeared only once, near the very end of the email. The person who created this email was clearly not interested in thanking me for my donation. In fact, they spent the beginning of the email talking about how giving to the organization makes them feel.


They were also not interested in personalizing the correspondence because everything about this email screamed form email.


Now, I’m not against using form emails. In fact, used properly form emails can save your organization a lot of time. But, you must put in the time to personalize every single email you send, especially thank you emails. This can be accomplished through a simple mail-merge process.


When personalizing thank you emails at least three things must be included:


  1. The donor should be addressed by name. 
  2. You should make reference to each donor's specific philanthropic interests. 
  3. You should mention at least a couple ways your donors dollars are being used. 

In the case of this email, the sender listed off three ways in which my dollars might have been used, none of which were the reason I give to this particular organization.

Finally, there’s an obvious typo near the end of the email. It should go without saying, but all materials produced by any organization should be proofread before being sent out. 


When it comes to thanking your donors, the details matter. Your email should be uniformly formatted and free of typos. It should address your donor personally and include references to their specific philanthropic interests. And most importantly, it should say thank you early and often.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016

    Categories

    All
    Boards And Committees
    Client Testimonials
    Corporate Sponsorship
    Donor Outreach And Appreciation
    Fund A Need Auctions
    Fund-A-Need Auctions
    Fundraising Ideas
    Fundraising Personal Blog
    Fundraising - Personal Blog
    In My Opinion
    Inside My Business
    Live Auctions
    Nonprofit Strategy
    Online Auctions
    Q&A With A Charity Auctioneer
    Raffles
    School Auctions
    Silent Auctions
    Volunteers

    RSS Feed