It's almost time to produce Tax Summary letters (End of Year Letters). Usually sent in January, after the last donation for the year is in, end of year letters are a perfect way to re-establish your relationship with all your donors. Here's a coherent plan of attack for FundRaiser users to breeze through this important time.
Step One -- HOW do you want to display their donations?
You'll obviously want to thank them for the year's donations, but do you want to list donations individually, or as a total dollar amount? Do you want to mention the number of gifts they gave? Would you like to encourage them to give again? FundRaiser has merge fields and functions to help with all of this, with the most often used being the GiftList and GiftTotal functions. GiftList can show a listing of the gifts you specify in a mini-report format, while GiftTotal simply adds up all the gifts you specify to print out the total dollar amount.
Step Two -- WHAT else do you want to say?
After you've decided how to show donations, there is a sample letter called Generic EndOfYear that comes with FundRaiser. You can use it as a guide, changing the wording to fit your organization, of course, and re-inserting the pertinent merge fields and functions, to make sure they are from the latest revision of the program. This will forestall any problems arising from possible outdated references in the sample template.
Step Three -- WHEN do you want to print them?
Before you print your letters, once you've gotten all the details of the letter worked out, make certain you have all of your gifts from the year entered into the system. It sounds obvious, but sometimes gifts are given in the last few days of the year, but not entered into the system until January. A bit of caution here will save you the hassle of having to go back and print letters one-at-a-time for those that were somehow overlooked.
Step Four -- WHO gets an end of year letter?
You can create a Grouping of everyone who donated last year, or you can simply use the Advanced section of the Mass Mailings to select those who have given during the past year. You might save a little money by selecting only those who gave more than a preset amount (say, $20.00), but we recommend that you send a letter to everyone who gave, regardless of amount. Why? Even if someone gave only $5.00, you may be able to convince them to give more or to give more often. You can be pretty certain that they won't give again if you don't maintain your relationship with them.
Step Five -- PRINT and mail the letters !!
The letters are printed through the Print menu, in Mass Mailings. You'll either select the Grouping you created, or set up the Advanced section to limit the printing to just those donors you want. Labels or envelopes will be printed here, too, and you'll want to make sure the same settings are used as when you printed the letters.
For a more detailed discussion on this subject, you may want to review the original article on our website.