Thank you notes make donors feel more appreciated and more likely to give again. Here’s how to take your association’s gift acknowledgements up a notch.
Most fundraisers know the importance of a timely and genuine gift acknowledgement. A thank you makes donors feel appreciated. It gives them a necessary gift receipt for their taxes. And it gives your association another touchpoint with them.
Take your gift acknowledgements up a level
If all you do is send a generic thank you note to your donors, that’s better than no acknowledgement at all. But to take your gift acknowledgements up a notch, think “personalization.” For example, include information about how the gift can support a particular aspect of your mission, or include anecdotes based on what you know about the donor.
Going this extra step makes your donors feel special. It also turns your thank you notes into a stronger donor stewardship tool.
The personalization challenge
For major donors or other donors that require high-touch communications, personalization can be straightforward – the manager of the donor on your development team will likely be happy to send a personal thank you note.
However, personalized acknowledgments can be trickier to produce for a larger pool of donors. Fundraising teams must find ways to generate them that optimize the opportunity to connect with the donor while keeping the burden on staff to a minimum.
Personalized gift acknowledgements made easy
That’s why fundraising functionality in NetForum Enterprise association management software makes it easier for associations to send personalized gift acknowledgements. These capabilities allow you to:
- Configure an unlimited number of acknowledgement templates that can be emailed or mailed to the donor. Templates can include merged fields, organization branding, images, source codes, and links to content or opportunities to donate again.
- Set default templates for each fundraising campaign. Rather than sending a generic message for all gifts, provide more meaningful information about how a gift for a particular campaign supports your mission. By linking an acknowledgement template to a campaign, NetForum Enterprise will automatically use that template when a donation is made to that campaign – with no staff intervention required.
- Add a personal message to be dropped into any acknowledgement template using special note fields on the gift. This is a good way to add more information about the gift’s impact, send a special message from the CEO directly to the donor, or provide other insight, opportunities to learn, or calls to action that apply directly to that donor. Using the merge capabilities in the pre-configured templates, these personalized messages will be dropped directly into the template when the letter or email is generated.
- Use the standard acknowledgement report or queries that select the gifts to be acknowledged, merge the data into the correct template based on configured defaults or manual selection during gift entry, and allow the acknowledgement to be emailed or printed for mail to the donor.
Learn more
Find out more about how fundraising functionality in NetForum can help your organization deepen donor relationships and increase donations. Explore NetForum Cloud fundraising capabilities
