Minnesota Council on Foundations Blog – Philanthropy Potluck

Photo: J. Star

Did you read the article Charities Flunk the Gratitude Test, highlighted in our March 13th In the Media roundup?

The author’s experiment, which she titled “What I Got When I Gave,” conjured up memories of my experiences as both a donation giver and receiver.

I’ve had the privilege of working and volunteering for a variety of small and large nonprofit organizations, all of which have been the recipients of foundation grant money and individual donations. Some have been more creative and effective than others in how they acknowledged donors’ generosity. At one small nonprofit, our director divided up the computer-generated thank-you form letters among the staff and board and asked each of us to add a handwritten one-sentence note of gratitude followed by our name. At another organization, we had a call-a-thon and, over a couple of evenings, board, staff and volunteers called all our individual donors not to ask for more, but simply to say thank you.

Those are the highlights. Unfortunately, too often some organizations have felt so bogged down in daily business and the demands of the next program or hot issue to do much more than shoot mail-merge form letters in the mail or simply list the donors in our annual report and hope they saw it.

On the flip side, as an individual donor, my most unforgettable thank-you came from the Carpenter St. Croix Valley Nature Center. Actually it was my then-7-year-old daughter who received the thank you. Through her grandparents and their donor-advised fund at The Saint Paul Foundation, she chose to make a small contribution to support the construction of an outdoor educational raptor housing project, which we read about in the foundation’s “Grant-A-Wish” booklet.

Having worked at a nonprofit and knowing that the amount of her contribution would typically warrant a form letter thank you – or at most perhaps a short handwritten note, which is what we received a couple weeks after they received the check – I was awestruck when, months later, the center mailed another card along with three 4”x6” glossy photos of the finished structure complete with a raptor sitting in it looking perfectly at home!

The handwritten note — which was in cursive, so I had to read it to my daughter — included an invitation to come see the built project. And so, this we did at my daughter’s insistence, and we brought her entire Girl Scout troop (and another donation) along.

“Think of thank-you notes as a cultivation tool,” advises LaTresse Snead, community relations team lead for Tastefully Simple, whom I interviewed last week about corporate philanthropy for the upcoming issue of Giving Forum.

Tastefully Simple doesn’t require its grant recipients to submit final reports, so a follow-up note goes a long way. “We like to hear how the funds were used, how far they went and how they helped an organization achieve its goals,” LaTresse told me. “We share that information with our team members, and it just warms their hearts. Even though it’s not required, if an organization took the time to write a little note or card, when that organization submits a request again, I think to myself, ‘You know what: They did so much with our donation last time, and I know they’ll do wonders with it again.’ ”

I found a couple more interesting articles on this topic: The Power of Thank You in Fundraising and in Life (what a heavy title!) and the very practical How to Write a Donation Thank-You Note.

Join the conversation: What have you given when you got? What have you gotten when you gave? What ideas can you share about how organizations can genuinely, yet efficiently, say thank you?

- Chris Noonan, MCF communications associate