Years ago, I read a story from fundraising consultant Jessica Harrington that forever changed my thoughts around thanking and communicating with donors.
She wrote of a renewal appeal that included a letter personalized to the year the donor first joined the organization and the causes it was fighting then.
It wasn’t one of those “insert-year-here” personalizations either. In Harrington’s words:
“We didn’t just pull out a date or reference a package — the customization was several paragraphs long and took the donor through the organization’s history and recognizing that none of this could have happened without [the donor].”
Revenue to that renewal was up 54%.
Her story got me thinking about donor moments... What can we thank donors for, and when can we thank them, to acknowledge their milestones that we might be missing?
Best-selling authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath know a little something about The Power of Moments... they wrote a book by the same name.
They share the story of a personal fitness-tracking device that acknowledges obvious milestones and creates new ones for its users. Such as:
“... the Monarch Migration Badge, which is described as follows: ‘Every year the monarch butterfly migrates 2,500 miles to warmer climates. With the same lifetime miles in your pocket, you’re giving those butterflies some hot competition!”
Recognizing milestone moments — donor moments — can work for you, too.
I’ll share an example.
One of my clients had worked hard for 25 years in a country whose people had been tragically and horrifically torn apart by violence.
In a donor newsletter, we planned to share the stories of how some of these incredible people had—against all odds and with steady support from this charity and its steadfast donors—reconciled.
Now, if you’re not a thankologist, you might think in terms of the organization. “For 25 years, we have been working to reconcile,” and “we implemented innovative tools” blah blah blah blah.
But we didn’t say any of that.
Instead, we talked about all the amazing people who had donated all through those 25 years.
Then we went a step further. We crafted a special message for donors who’d been giving for the full 25 years.
These supporters received a special newsletter cover letter that told how it was their generosity that put boots on the ground in the days after the violence had only just ended...
... How it was their abiding support that helped lift the hearts of people who had been shattered into a thousand different pieces, and then helped them heal long after the media spotlight had moved on.
We thanked the donors, and thanked them, and thanked them some more. Then my design colleague Sandie took it another step further and created a special thank-you badge for the top of the letter.
Response rate for that segment increased 67% over the prior newsletter.
Other donors were thanked abundantly too. Of course.
But, the connection between the story and those 25-year supporters would have slipped by completely unnoticed—unheralded!—if we weren’t thinking in donor moments.
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In her book Thankology, Lisa Sargent boils down a lifetime of experience as nonprofit writer to offer instantly actionable advice on how to properly thank donors so they feel appreciated and joyful, knowing the impact they have on their favourite causes. Curious about how you can thank you donors in creative ways to increase your own retention and response rate? Click here to buy Thankology today.