While love languages have long been a fixture in pop psychology for improving romantic relationships, new science is emerging that learning to speak donors’ love languages forges lasting connections between nonprofits and their supporters.

“The Love Project,” a new report from the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy, identifies several evidence-backed ways fundraisers can help donors develop genuine feelings of love for the causes they support. The key is that fundraisers need to feel the love, too, by experiencing gratitude. That will help you tap into what drives your donors to give and thank them in a way that feels deeply rewarding and mutual.

“It’s not like you’re using a technique to get love — it is a love experience. By definition, it’s an experience of feeling,” says Jen Shang, a philanthropic psychologist and co-founder of the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy.

The Chronicle spoke with Shang and two other fundraising experts who shared their advice for cultivating loving, long-term relationships with donors, beginning with thank-you notes. Here’s what they say.

Use Sensory Storytelling to Evoke Feeling

From your earliest interactions with new donors, employ warm, poetic language in your outreach and thank-yous, Shang recommends. Pairing sensory text with a photo will set a scene and place donors in a moment by telling an immersive story about what their gifts will accomplish.

How you should do that depends mostly on the people your nonprofit serves, she says: “Think of it in terms of human stories we can tell.” For museums and symphonies, you could talk about the joy of people who might not otherwise be able to afford a ticket to a performance or exhibit. For a conservation charity, the focus could be on how it feels to breathe fresh air or drink clean water.

“If we don’t connect with our senses, we are teaching or telling,” Shang says. “But if the purpose is to grow love, you can’t grow love without feelings. It’s the courier of love.”

Don’t Keep Donors at Arm’s Length

Lisa Sargent, a fundraising copywriter and author of the book Thankology, says it’s critical to treat supporters as close, valued partners in a thank-you letter. To that end, there are three little words she urges you to never write.

“My greatest wish is that no thank-you letter ever starts with ‘on behalf of …’” she says. “It’s isolating. It creates a layer between me and my gift.”

You might think you should be sharing thanks from a multitude of people behind the scenes, but donors want to feel included in the mission work, Sargent says: “You’re creating that little distance, but people crave connection and love. Don’t underestimate how much your letter will mean to the recipient.”

Instead, begin with a short, heartfelt story about the direct impact of their gift. You can even use creative-writing techniques like alliteration or rhyme to make the language sing, she says.

Starting with a story helps form an intimate bond that makes the donor feel more connected to your mission, person to person, she explains.

Sargent shares an introduction she wrote for an international animal-welfare group as an example: “Half a world away, a boy and a veterinarian huddle together at the roadside. They don’t even speak a common language. But today they work side by side, barely a breath apart. Why? They are here to save the little boy’s dog. And all thanks to you.”

Tie Your Thank-Yous to Your Campaigns

Shoni Field, chief development officer at the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, recommends referencing the appeal that prompted the gift in your donor acknowledgments.

As an example, she describes a campaign to raise money to care for pets that had been evacuated during a wildfire in Canada. The thank-you letters she sent out shortly thereafter recognized donors as an essential part of their team of first responders.

She told donors, “‘In an emergency, we are all pitching in together, and we are all connected.’ That is very affirming for people.”

Field likes to use video to drive this point home. “The thank-you will be a video after — the triage of the animals coming in, then showing what happens when they are clean and fed and not fearful,” she says. “It can make tangible that very visceral difference in the animal’s situation. We all came together and made something magical and special happen.”

Abide by a 48-Hour Rule

The rule of thumb is that you have 48 hours after receiving a charitable gift to send a thank-you note, Sargent says. Missing that two-day window substantially lowers the chance that the donor will give again.

However, if that feels rushed, she says it’s better to take more time when it’s the difference between a personalized letter and a generic one.

“What matters most are speed and quality,” she says. “If it takes you a few extra days to get a genuine, authentic, caring letter out the door, take the few extra days.”

If you’re looking to streamline your communications, she adds, it’s fine to combine your thank-you letter with a receipt that acknowledges the amount of the gift so that donors don’t receive redundant messages from you.

Don’t Use A

I

Without Careful Editing

On whether generative artificial intelligence can be used as a time-saver for donor thank-yous, the experts universally counseled caution.

Shang says AI programs like ChatGPT could be useful to “spark a feeling of gratitude” for the writer of your thank-you letters, but the output will not be good enough to send because it will lack an authentic person-to-person connection. “I would never, ever want to send out a message of gratitude without a human being behind it,” she warns. “It’s an ethical consideration, to start with. Gratitude in itself is a good human experience.”

Sargent feels strongly about this topic as well. “You think about the topics we write about — an animal who’s been abused, or a child who is the first in their generation to go to college, or a famine in another country,” she says. “These are tough topics. When thanking someone, it needs to come from someone who is living and breathing.”

While it is extra work to strike the right personal tone, your supporters will likely respond in kind. Sargent says the effects of a touching thank-you will be so powerful, you’ll hear about them from donors long after the fact.

“When people get gratitude right, your CEO will start to get fan mail,” she says. “Those letters will come in shaky handwriting, but they will be so genuine.”

Adapt Your Language Over Time

Every long-term relationship starts with getting to know each other, so earlier thank-you letters should look very different from the ones you send after years of loyal giving, all the experts agree.

Before sending that initial note, Field says, you should ask yourself, “What am I thanking them for?”

“The easy and obvious answer is that you’re thanking them for the gift, but that’s thanking them for a transaction,” she adds. “You’re really thanking them for being the kind of person who values your mission work.”

Many of her first-time donors seek out her group because they have witnessed injustice against animals. She validates their feelings of anger and sadness in the first thank-you note, but longer term, she wants to make donors feel hope that they are part of an ongoing solution just by caring about these issues.

Field says this is an important nuance because if you want to inspire donors to commit to your organization for the long haul, you need to make them feel like they belong to a community with shared values. “You’re building their feelings of well-being regardless of whether the gift comes in,” she explains.

And don’t forget to thank your monthly donors. Shang’s institute conducted research on sending notes of gratitude to these donors every six weeks. This strategy resulted in additional donations on top of those automatic recurring gifts, as well as a lower attrition rate among monthly supporters. Giving increased by about 16 percent in the first eight months, leading researchers to predict the continued use of this approach would result in a 100 percent increase in total giving over 40 months.

“Like any relationship, it takes time to develop feelings of love,” Shang says.

Tailor Your Thanks to Donors’ Communication Preferences

Sargent says you should tailor the way you express your gratitude according to how the donor chose to give.

For online donors, you should begin saying thanks as soon as they click “donate.” On the splash page that follows a gift, address a message to the donor by name and make it warm and direct, she advises: “Say: ‘You’re amazing, thank you for your generosity.’”

Ask donors for their communication preferences, and then live by them, she says. If they opt in to direct mail, then you can send a hard-copy thank-you letter. Text messaging is also fine if you have their permission to reach them that way.

But for blockbuster results in future giving, pick up the phone to thank longtime or major donors — nothing beats a thank-you call. “If a month or two goes by, you can call special donors,” Sargent says. “The effect is massive.”

Don’t Send Trinkets

Charities have long used the social-psychology concept of reciprocity to generate donations by sending presents to prospects. For example, they might send address labels, pens, or other small tokens in an attempt to prompt recipients to return the favor with another charitable donation.

However, “It’s a very old-fashioned way of raising money,” Shang says. “It potentially guilts people into giving.”

Field concurs that not only is this strategy outdated, but it also could be seen as wasteful or even antithetical to the cause: “Donors will say, ‘I don’t need the pen and the magazine.’ It’s us being conscious of our resources, but it’s also being mindful of how our donors see our use of our resources.”

She reports her supporters often don’t even want hard-copy letters of thanks and ask for e-receipts instead because they are trying to be more intentional about not wasting paper or postage.

That said, the British Columbia SPCA mails out stickers for donors to put on their doors that list the animal residents of a home, a way to notify first responders in an emergency. “Mission-aligned gifts are a different beast,” she says.

Finish With a Flourish

The letter should be signed by the person in your organization who is the strongest point of connection to the letter’s content, says Shang. That might be a program leader, CEO, board member, or a beneficiary of your group’s services who is telling their story. “Who signs it is not as important as what’s in the letter,” she says.

Stick the landing in your thank-you letter with a powerful wrap-up, Sargent advises.

That means putting some extra thought into your valediction. Don’t sign off with “sincerely,” she says: “Use, ‘For the good in your heart, we hope good comes back to you.’ You can take every corner of your thank-you and make it beautiful.”