Beginning in May, you’ll notice some of the classes that we have on our training schedule will have new names. In addition, you’ll find the class schedule has been reorganized to allow you to complete our three core classes in the same weeks. We’ve made these changes in the hopes of streamlining your training experience as well as providing more descriptive names for the classes.
So what’s changed?
When creating your thank you letters, telling your donors about your mission helps to convey the appreciation you have for their gift, as well as the good work their gift will do. Showing them with a picture or two will provide a powerful reminder of the transformative nature of your organization’s work.
When including a picture in your correspondence, you want to choose one that conveys your mission and the work you do. Too many pictures will clutter the letter. A single picture in a thank you letter will provide a visual reminder to your donor and help them see that their donation has gone toward a good cause. I’ve seen this work very well in animal rescue or children’s organizations, where the picture completes a very personal thank you. For example, a picture of a cat and a message that, “Fluffy thanks you for your donation to keep her purring with good food and care.” will help bring home the thought that the donation went directly toward the organization’s mission.
When updating a previous letter, it's important to review the criteria for the merge fields. This is especially true when using merge fields that input a total of all gifts or a list of gifts which meet certain requirements. For example, you may want to make the total of the gifts include the current year to date, rather than the date range used previously.
You can remove and then insert the merge field again to bring up the list of criteria to make those changes; however, there's an easier way to do this. Double click on the capital letter or symbol preceding the field name in brackets. This will open up the criteria window where you can make changes to the criteria and click okay to save it. Then, save your letter again.
It doesn't take much to include personal touches in a thank you letter template. You could mention the last gift they gave (date and/or amount), or the first time they gave, or the amount of support they've provided over the years. Different situations may call for different letter templates, and different groups of donors, but it's all possible in FundRaiser. And while you are thanking them, let them know what their contribution has done. What has your organization done since their last gift? How many people (or animals, or communities, or ??) has the organization helped in that time? This takes a bit of planning, so that you might have, for instance, a group of donors who have given, but not in the past 2 years, and another group who have given in the past 2 years, but not the past 6 months, and maybe another group who gave for the first time in the past 6 months, etc. You'll want different messages depending on the situation, but it's not that difficult to do, and the results will be a more personal approach to that "ask" for additional donations.
Many non-profits are vying for the same donor dollars, and showing appreciation for past donations is important in ALL interactions with your donors. If you are sending an invitation to an event, THANK them for their previous gifts. If you are sending a newsletter, THANK them for their ongoing support. If you have a special funding need and are sending an appeal, THANK them in advance for their consideration and for sharing your needs with their friends, family, etc., but THANK THEM.
If you are going to use last year's letter, it is good to review the letter in FundRaiser’s Word Processor, if the letter was used in FundRaiser previously. One of the common problems we see in Tech Support regarding Tax Summary letters is when people would like to use the letter from last year, and it isn't showing the right gift amounts. That’s easily solved.
With the letter open in FundRaiser, click on the Gift List or Gift Total Function code and make sure that the date range is in the right year. You can also remove the merge function for the total giving or gift list and reenter it, and that will allow you the opportunity to reenter the date range.
Don’t be afraid to compose your fundraising letters in the FundRaiser word processor. It has many of the same features, such as bold, italics, or bullet points, as other word processing programs like Microsoft Word.
Using it will make letter merging easier than if you write your letter in another program and paste it into the FundRaiser word processor. This is because there is often hidden code in other word processors that will affect how your letter will look. This is especially true with bullet points and paragraph formatting. When you write letters directly in the FundRaiser word processor, they will appear true to the formatting that you apply.
My family is big on writing letters, and I think there’s no more powerful form of written communication than a letter in the mail. It shows that someone took the time to write, print, sign, and mail a letter. The organization (or the individual) cared enough to use a stamp and make sure the letter got to the carrier or the post office. It’s a personal way to communicate.
FundRaiser has many features for helping you with this fine mode of communication. One feature that I'd like to highlight here is that of being able to mark letters active or inactive as necessary. This comes in very handy for events which occur on a regular basis. How does this work?
To build on the blogs recently posted about greetings and letters, I wanted to share a bit about FundRaiser’s word processing capabilities. FundRaiser Software comes with several pre-loaded letter templates. These templates have places for you to list your organization’s accomplishments and goals. So, it’s always good to review the letter templates before sending your first mailing.
When you open FundRaiser Software, you’ll notice a menu item marked Communications. Here you’ll find everything you need to send letters as well as update them. The Letter Templates menu option allows you to see all your letter templates, review their content, and even determine if you want to make them active or not. (We’ll talk more about active/inactive letters next week.) If you see a letter you need to personalize, for example a “Thank you” letter that has a place marked to put in accomplishments for your organization, then click on Edit Letter to go straight to the built-in word processor.
One of the things I receive questions on as I’m hosting training classes is email through FundRaiser. How does the program know that someone can get emails? What can be sent via email? Is there a copy? The convenience of email, not to mention the cost savings, makes it appealing to use. So let’s talk about emailing within FundRaiser.
For each record within FundRaiser you have complete control over the communications preferences. If someone prefers email—and many people do these days—then the customer’s record can be set to email only. Additionally, with each correspondence that is sent, you can choose if it will be sent through the postal mail or via email where appropriate.
Bold, bright graphics catch your donor’s eye and make him or her want to read the correspondence. Putting your logo on the letter provides additional organization recognition. No matter your reason for wanting to include graphics in your letter, you want to make sure that your images enhance your message.
FundRaiser Software allows you to dress up your letter with a photograph or other special image. Your picture needs to be in a recognized image format (such as .bmp, .jpg, .png, or .gif). If your computer reads the picture as an image then there’s a good chance it’s already in a supported format.
