Fantastic Thank you Letters

I realize most nonprofits are still receiving year end gifts in response to your year end appeal.  Its never to early to start writing a carefully crafted thank you letter for those thoughtful donors.  Here are five tips to make your thank you letter a more meaningful one. 


1. Personalize it.  This may sound very simple but you don't know how many template, standard letters go out this time of year.  Make sure, your letters have the first name of the donor or " Dear friend," on them. 


I am always amazed when I receive a thank you letter from a charity that has no mention of my gift amount.  It sort of makes me feel like my gift did not matter enough.  In these tough times, gifts are harder to come by and a little extra work can help to ensure your donors feel her gift is truly appreciated.   This will help the donor for their tax purposes in 2011!


2. Repeat gifts. If this is a repeat donor make sure you acknowledge their past gifts.  Remind them how their previous gift helped your organization to meet its mission.  You may want to say something like, " Your last gift helped to ensure 30 families received services..." You may even want to say, "We appreciate your continued support over the last four years..."


3. How will their contribution help.  Add some detail of how their gift will help your organization now.  If the donor checked off a particular program or project in their donation form, mention it in the thank you letter.  You may want to add a sentence about what you hope to achieve during the year for this project.  


4.  Real signature.  Have a real person sign the letter!  I realize that around this time you may be fortunate enough to have a stack of letters to sign.  Its probably easier to have a signature stamp.  But  real signature means a lot to the person receiving the thank you letter. 


5. P.S. In your letter offer the donor several options where they can learn more about your organization.  These options include: site tours, website updates, organizational blogs, and a contact number where they can call.  This is also a great opportunity to offer volunteer opportunities if the donor is interested. 


I hope these tips help you to craft a better thank you letter.  Oh yes and one last tip... your thank you letters should be mailed no later than the end of January.  This should give you 30 days to respond to all your donor gifts.  Normally, you should let more than 48 hours go by without sending a thank you letter.  However, with the holidays we are afforded a little more time. 


Happy Letter Writing! 

Happy Holidays!

My hope is that you and yours enjoy this holiday season.  I hope that this year has brought all the blessings you have hoped for and deserve.  

Olga 

Planning is Nothing Without Execution

Many nonprofit organizations approach strategic planning the way some people train for their first marathon.  They go out and buy new running shoes and they go out and run every day the first week.  By the third week they run twice a week and soon their good intentions turn into distant memories.  


Why do so many strategic planning efforts turn out this way? Most often it's because we approach the plan the way we try to run our first marathon. We just grab our shoes and start running without committing to a strategy for reaching our goals.

Here are 5 tips on how prevent this from happening to your plan. 


1. Start with the end in mind.  What do you want to achieve for your organization? Talk about what success will look like with staff, board, volunteers and stakeholders.  The more you talk about it, the more everyone buys into it. 


2. Baby step it all the way.  You know the saying, "Rome wasn't built in a day"? Well, your plan won't be achieved in 6 months either.  Your strategic plan should include baby steps or milestones to reaching your goals.  


3. Make it a team effort.  Your plan should designate who will lead each of the baby steps and make sure they are accomplished on time. The more people are involved the more likely things will get done. 


4. Revisit your plan, often! The goals of the strategic plan should be the focus of your board meetings.  Switch your board meetings to a consent agenda at  so you can spend time focusing on the execution of the plan. The consent agenda allows the organization to focus on the future as opposed to what happened last month. 


5. Tweak if necessary.  Sometimes, strategic plans need to be adjusted.  This doesn't mean we failed and we shouldn't get discouraged.  If you don't meet 100% of each of your goals... at least you tried and you're further along than you would have been, had you not tried at all.   


Has your organization fallen short of execution? 

No checklist... no plan!

If you and I decided to drive to Chicago today, we would likely make a checklist of things to do before we left.  Our checklist would likely include: 

• Get the car ready, change the oil, check the tires and windshield wipers
• Get a map and pick a driving route
• Decide where we will stay along the way
• Buy snacks 
• Load the iPod with great songs for the long trip

If we didn't make this checklist, we would probably just start driving and it would take us longer to get 

there.  

A strategic plan helps a nonprofit organization decide how they will get to where they want to go. A plan helps the organization focus its energy.  It creates a checklist of baby steps needed to achieve the goals of the organization.  More importantly, a strategic plan allows the organization to think how it wants to grow.  

You wouldn't drive to Chicago without a map and your checklist completed.  Why would a nonprofit organization start the year without a plan? 

End of the Year Appeals

If you are in the business of nonprofit, you know this time of year is the time of the "year end appeal."  Usually like time is given to the message in these year end appeals.  I'd like to challenge you to think beyond the usual, "we need your help," type of appeal.  


I suggest that this year your appeal letter focus on your vision for the upcoming year.  What do you hope to achieve? Perhaps this is the second or third year of your strategic plan which calls for expansion of your programs.  Talk about these future plans.  Show your donors how their gifts this "Holiday Season" will make a big difference next year for your constituents. 


Lastly, don't forget to thank your donors in your personalized year end appeal.  You can never say thank you too many times!  Happy Holidays! 

Olga 

First Nonprofit Matters Blog

Hello Everyone,  This is the first Nonprofit Matters Blog.  This blog is dedicated to everything that matters about nonprofits, board development, fund raising, strategic planning.... etc.,  I hope you find this useful and feel free to post questions or comments.  


For now a little about me... my first job out of college was in a nonprofit organization.  Fast forward almost 17 years and I've now worked and dedicate my entire professional career in nonprofit management and leadership, grant making and philanthropy as well as, nonprofit management consulting.  All this experience has led me where I am today, helping all sorts of nonprofit organizations meet their missions.  


Although, my company is based in Utah, we have many clients all over the southwest including California and Colorado.  Our company motto is to build your organizational capacity so that you don't have to rely on us on an ongoing basis.  


Thanks for letting me help you with your nonprofit questions. 


Olga