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:
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.
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:
- The donor should be addressed by name.
- You should make reference to each donor's specific philanthropic interests.
- 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.
RSS Feed