Why your thanks is a great investment
File under: How quickly SHOULD you thank a donor?
Dear readers: Giving season is here for most of us. If you depend on individual donors to make annual gifts, you're about to haul in something like 80% of your philanthropic support for the entire year. What does YOUR "thanks" game look like?
Think of thanking as an investment
Arianne C. leads the communications and marketing department at a big, crucial community charity. And she emailed me the following timely question:
Tom! I thought of you today as I was chatting with a colleague about our standard turnaround time for sending out donor acknowledgements... which always slows a little as we wander through the last quarter of the year.
I'm curious, what is your opinion on best practice for turnaround time on donor acknowledgements? And is there a source you cite in your trainings on this particular topic?
My answer....
Hello, Arianne! Great question....
Yes, there IS a bit of data that all sorts of experts cite in their trainings. I've heard it on 3 continents from top fundraisers.
It originated with valid research, but I'd have to change into a lab coat to dig back through time to when I first heard it from an expert ... who was citing it from an expert ... who was citing it from an expert. (And if some doubting Thomas insists on knowing exactly the original source, my answer is, "Well, there's this thing called Google search...")
And what IS that data?
If you personally thank a FIRST-time donor within 48 hours ... somehow (card, call, leaving a message is fine, emotionally effusive email, etc.), that first-time donor is 300% more likely to make a second gift.
To repeat: 300% more likely
So, what happens if you slide a bit and wait 72 hours instead? Probably nothing much, percentage-wise.
But if you wait weeks? Don't expect a lot of applause.
Wait months? You get judged. Remember: your donors are VOLUNTEERS. They're trying to work WITH you. And a lazy thank-you reveals that your crew is just another disorganized NGO that doesn't know which side of the toast to butter.
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300% is a HUGE upside in retention because of one OTHER bit of research, tracked routinely by the likes of Blackbaud and the Fundraising Effectiveness Project:
70-80% of first-time donors do NOT NOT NOT NOT make a second gift.
I.e., your charity goes to all the time, trouble, expense and anguish to acquire new donors ... YET 7 or 8 out of those 10 first-time donors do NOT give again. Which is pretty much the definition of a failed attempt at a "relationship."
There's that old maxim about dating: "There are always more fish in the sea."
That's not true with first-time donors.
Sure, a well-known brand like Planned Parenthood can overcome the odds and find plenty of fish, especially when women's rights established for 50 years are being tossed in the dumpster by SCOTUS.
However: If you're a smaller charity known to a relative handful, there really AREN'T that many fish in the sea ... and most aren't whales, either. ("Whales" being rich folk. Real whales are mammals not fish anyway, as you know ... sorry, losing my grip on the metaphor.)
According to world-class trainer Alan Clayton, acquiring a first-time gift is the hardest work in fundraising. So anything you can do to keep that first-time donor --- like extravagant, unexpected thanking --- is worth the trouble.
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Thanking is not an obligation. It's a high-impact, high-reward communications strategy.
My best PERSONAL recent example is from the Wilbury Theatre Group. Their stage art is outrageously worth watching. I made an online gift to Wilbury during the 2023 401Gives weekend. I got a nice acknowledgement from their robot immediately and instantly an emailed thanks.
A few days later, though, something special arrived in my real-life postal mailbox, the one by the side of the road: a handwritten note from "Your friends at the Wilbury Group."
Yes: a handwritten thanks for my online gift ... IN ADDITION to what their robot had already sent. Maybe they sent the same handwritten note to every donor; I dunno. Maybe they had a raft of volunteers (and plenty of pizza) plugging away at these notes, handwritten in readable blue scrawl. Maybe there were even some pizza-fingerprints on the notes. (Authenticity!)
What matters was: WILBURY TOOK THE TIME TO MAKE ME FEEL SPECIAL.
Will that hand-written note make us love Wilbury extra hard next time they ask for a gift? Probably.
Context: Our household gives to at least two dozen admired charities every year (and more, in larger amounts, when the stock market's in better shape).
No more than a quarter of those charities are good at thanking. The "thanks-challenged" remainder are tolerated/forgiven because we strongly believe in their core missions.
The math of thanks
The GOLDEN metric is Lifetime Value (LTV). LTV is everything a SINGLE donor gives your charity over time, from their first gift (in America, on average, something like $25) to their last (maybe a bequest).
If a donor gives JUST once (as most do), you're probably losing money on acquisition. Almost NO donor acquisition program makes money on first-time gifts (unless you push MONTHLY giving from the start).
The REAL money comes later, down the road, as you strengthen your donor-retention efforts ... which WILL depend, in part, on the quality of your thanks.
One more thing, Arianne, then I'll stop: Dr. Jen Shang, dubbed "the world's first research psychologist with a doctorate in philanthropy," has said in my presence loud and clear: "Your thank you is the most important communication you have with your donor."
Dr. Shang is the co-founder with Dr. Adrian Sargeant of the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy. It's based in the UK and US; does research worldwide for charities like NPR (for numerous affiliates), American Red Cross, Greenpeace, etc.
In short, according to Jen: THANKS are your best offense AND defense.
Thanking is NOT a chore. It's an investment!!! It's also an emotional MOMENT for the donor.
So: thank YOU for asking, Arianne! You've given me a topic for my e-news that might help others!
~ tom
And then Arianne THANKED ME!!!
Tom! Thank you so much for this. It's a wealth of helpful information (not that I'm surprised...). I will certainly share it with my colleagues.
I actually do think it would help our processing team to know that prioritizing first-time gifts (ensuring a 48 hr turnaround time on hard copy acknowledgements) is the goal... we might also give them guidance that it's ok to push to 72 hours for repeat donors.
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