Thank you letter

Candy Sangster

Has anyone had any issues with the receipt letter donors receive having a salutation looking like this:


Hello Candy & Josh,


We have had a couple to turn on like this but when I look on donor's record I see nothing wrong with it and when I look at the forms in Online Express there isn't an error...HELP!

Austen Brown

Hi Candy Sangster‍ - Not sure what is happening that might be causing this, but I can tell you that ' &' is HTML name code for the '&' symbol. Does this happen for every donor that has an '&' in their salutation?

Candy Sangster

Yes it does but all of our donors that are married have & in their salutation. This doesn't happen to every person who gives via Online Express.

Jeannie Goings

Hello @Candy Sangster,


My guess is this a copy paste or font problem. If your addressee/salutations are set up using an ampersand, and the data that came into your database was not "text" the & is how the character was translated by RE. People really like to use Times New Roman and the use of smart quotes but when emails are saved from Outlook, smart quotes, ampersands, emojis, and even spaces do not convert as anticipated.


To identify which records need attention, you would have to export your salutations and filter records that contain & and reimport values that have been saved as a txt file.


Good luck.

Candy Sangster

It doesn't happen to every donor that puts a & sign in the first name field when filling out the Online Express donor form. It is very odd.