How to say 'Thank you'

With the cost of acquiring new donors becoming increasingly more expensive, the importance of retaining existing supporters has never been more important to a charity’s financial sustainability.

Charities in the UK spend a considerable part of their budgets in search of supporters to give ad-hoc donations, yet many fail to treat these individuals or groups as long-term partners who share the same passion for the cause as themselves.

Does your charity take the time to say “Thank You” to your customers and supporters?

Research continues to demonstrate that within the charity sector not being thanked is overwhelmingly cited as the most common reason people give for not making further donations to an organisation.

In research published by the fundraising consultancy, John Grain Associates they found that from over 100 charities surveyed that:

• One in ten charities did not thank their new donors who gave a first gift of less than £10
• Almost one in five charities who did not thank new donors giving less than £5
• and that, over half of existing supporters giving online, only received a bounce-back email acknowledgement.

However, over 25% of charities in the survey tried ‘always or often’ to send handwritten thank you messages to acknowledge gifts, but for those who aren’t doing this or don’t know where to begin we’ve pulled together a few thoughts:

1. Assess your reporting back processes

• Ask not just how do you currently thank your donors but, how long does it take for them to receive that acknowledgement.
• Additionally, do you let them know how their generous gift has made a difference?

2. Review what you’ve written

• Be objective and consider when reading what you’ve written and how it makes you feel? Is it warm, personal and relevant? If not, rewrite it.
• Fundraising is an emotional business – always has been, always will be!

3. Set some guidelines

• Set guides that work best for your charity, such as acknowledgements to be received within 48 hours or gifts of a certain amount singled out for a telephone call.
• Review and understand your donors, work out what works best for them (and you).

4. Demonstrate impact

• Be informative, donors like to know that their money has made a difference, so build some impact reporting into your plan of action.
• Project reports will keep donors engaged in campaigns and with your organisation.

5. Make a statement

• For large donations, you may want to think about recognising these contributions publicly, if appropriate, perhaps a plaque on the wall or the naming of a building?
• Consider the donor do they want the big acclaim? If so, go to town!

What can Mosaic Fulfilment Solutions do to help?

Together with Telebank Ltd, Committing Giving and the recent acquisition of CFP lotteries and raffles, Mosaic provide the most complete donation processing solution in the market today, supplying everything from initial strategy through to payment processing and of course thanking supporters for their donation.

We help our third sector clients get the most from their fundraising by providing leading donation processing services. Mosaic can handle donations received in any format and manage subsequent Gift Aid quickly and efficiently.

Operating from a single York-based site our resilient, mission-critical contact centre environment, is open seven-days-a-week and enforced with leading business continuity and compliance solutions to ensuring zero downtime protecting both our clients and their supporters.

Our digital print mailroom is an on-demand solution that allows for full customisation of each individual thank you piece. Supporting data brought in from any source and build on the back of vast experience in complex short-run & personalised digital Print.

Mosaic can receive your data in any format and through our significant investment in leading hardware and print on demand technology, support and optimise your direct mail campaigns and Variable Data Print requirements.

From the most basic text through to complex graphic and imagery customisation, regardless of how you want the thank you acknowledgements to look, with Mosaic – everything is possible.

So, if you are looking for an end-to-end banking and thanking solution, whether your looking to thank your supporter using our contact centre of benefit from our onsite print facilities, get in touch with the team today.