In fundraising, you’ll hear people emphasize the importance of thank you letters (TYLs). A lot.
And they’re not wrong to do so.
TYLs are the first step to validating your donors and building a relationship (it’s not enough to just say “thank you”). They’re key in letting the donors know you received their donation. . . and that it mattered. All of which is part of the process of retaining donors and preventing lapsed donors.
But would anyone really know if you didn’t do TYL’s?
Yes.
Let’s look at the Case of the Missing Thank You Letters.
(We read a lot of Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys growing up, can you tell?)
A couple of years ago, we noticed that the numbers for a long-term client seemed off. They had a healthy database of long-time donors, and the client’s fourth quarter fundraising had an established history of strong performance.
But not this fall.
Their giving was down.
So, our team started doing some investigating. We talked with the client, and our respective teams got to work digging deeper and deeper into the data.
We discovered that the third-party company our client was using to process gifts was not processing them timely. At all.
That meant that donors’ gifts weren’t being acknowledged. The relationship wasn’t validated and strengthened.
In many cases, donors were receiving multiple appeals before their TYL came in the mail.
Shocker! With how they were (unintentionally) being treated, the donors left. In droves.
Why give to a nonprofit that obviously doesn’t care if you give or not? There are hundreds of other organizations to give to and many other ways to support the causes you care about.
So. . . what to do next?
Obviously, a new vendor was needed and a new process implemented to prevent this from happening in the future.
For the fundraising and development side though, the organization needed to rebuild trust with their donors. Oneicity created a series that spanned several months to validate the donors’ involvement with the organization. They were pieces that focused on the donor’s impact, how they were making a difference, subtly reminding the donors of why they “fell in love” with the organization in the first place.
Did it work?
The results improved, but it didn’t happen overnight. It took time to rebuild and regain lapsed donors—and, sadly, some of them will likely never be back.
The saying is that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the same applies for donor relationships. It takes time and consistent, conscious effort to build the trust for your donors.
But it takes just one big blaze to burn it all to the ground.
So, yes. TYLs really are that important!
If you aren’t sure whether you’re thanking your donors correctly or have questions, give us a shout! Email us at: howdy@oneicity.com
Photo by Agence Olloweb on Unsplash
