Making Sure No Donor Gets the Same Thank-You Letter Twice

Some organizations may have one thank-you letter to send to donors, but Trinity College, in Hartford, Conn., wants to be sure nobody gets the same letter twice.

Dorothy Thompson, assistant director for donor relations, says she is constantly tweaking the basic letter, building new ones from the interchangeable parts displayed below so she can find the most appropriate way to acknowledge each gift.

To make thank-you letters to annual-fund donors stand out, she looks for “benchmarks of overall excellence” to include, such as the average SAT scores of students in Trinity’s incoming freshman class and jumps in the number of applications.

To ensure that Trinity has enough options to keep donors from getting the same message over and over, Ms. Thompson says, she is constantly searching for good ideas she can copy from other institutions.

“I definitely try to see what other donor-relations people are doing and where there are ideas I can implement,” Ms. Thompson said.

The letter linked below is part of the Great Acknowledgment Swap, a collection of letters gathered by Lynne Wester, director of stewardship and donor recognition at Yeshiva University and blogger at donorrelationsguru.com. You can see the full collection of more than 600 pages on her site.

As always, we invite you to critique the letters and borrow ideas for your own acknowledgments.