Mailed Gift Acknowledgment Standards

Elizabeth Morgan
Elizabeth Morgan
Fifth Anniversary Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Altru® General Discussions

There is little guidance on acknowledging donors, other than to do it and do it in a timely fashion. Legally, donors should be sent written acknowledgement for any donation over $250. Since there are not best practices in our industry it would be interesting to view what are other nonprofits doing.

What are your nonprofit's standards for mailing acknowledgment letters? Any donation over $10? Over $25? All mailed donations? Do you mail acknowledgments for mailed and online donations? Any insights into your nonprofits standards for mailing acknowledgments and why those standards would be much appreciated as we head into the End of Year flurry. Thank you!

Comments

  • Heather MacKenzie
    Heather MacKenzie
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 August 2025 Monthly Challenge Badge bbcon 2025 Attendee Badge

    In a past life, we mailed a card which was mostly pre-printed to those under $250 to still say thanks, but less expensive and time consuming then a letter, and then a letter for $250 and up. Across the board, regardless of how the gift came in, and also including gifts in kind. The director reviewed all letters and personalized whatever she felt like. We mailed everything.

    At my current situation, we have a letter for everything, all dollar amounts and including gifts in kind, and we email when possible (because of COVID-19) and then mail when we can't email. My director personalizes anything over $5,000.

  • Faith Murray
    Faith Murray Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper

    As a religious college, we are bound by the “widow's mite” philosophy - that is, a small donation is as valuable as a large one. Therefore, all gifts get acknowledged (except the 10-cent donations that come in the mail of course, or the donors who give five gifts of $1 each month - we will just send one letter totaling all cumulative gifts for those people.) All letters are signed by hand by our CEO or college President.

    Online gifts are also followed up with a snail mail letter, because - let's face it - everyone knows the email receipt on web forms is auto-generated. It arrives 2 seconds after you make your gift. In a digital world where major donors may give $5,000 gifts through an online web form, a robot-email provides tax documentation, but not a proper “thank-you, we care”. You might be able to overcome this hurdle if you have a younger donor demographic, by sending a time-delayed, “primitive” thank-you email (no header or photos, so it looks like a personal message). However, we (like most nonprofits) have an average donor age of 65+, so that doesn't work for the bulk of our donors.

    We personalize any gift above $1,000, or gifts from alumni, Board members, or other people we know. Gifts above $5,000 get extra personalization and a follow-up phone call.

  • Crystal Bruce
    Crystal Bruce admin
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Commented in Discussion First Reply

    Great topic! I'm going to feature this in the featured discussion slider. Thanks!

  • Elizabeth Morgan
    Elizabeth Morgan
    Fifth Anniversary Facilitator 1

    Thank you for your thoughtful replies!

  • Jane Van Ingen
    Jane Van Ingen
    Fifth Anniversary Kudos 4 Name Dropper Participant

    Elizabeth:

    I agree with everything that everyone else said. I would add one point: We also send personalized notes to key donors once a year to let them know they're appreciated. It's been a success; we've seen higher value donations from some of our donors.

    Good luck!

    Jane

  • Kylea Johnson
    Kylea Johnson
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant

    We send snail mail thank you letters to everyone regardless of gift size, and if it is their first donation of the year they get the year's scholarship brochure included as well. Donations over $1K get an extra thank you letter cosigned by our college prez and foundation ED, and on College stationary rather than Foundation stationary.

    We also send hand written thank you notes to every single donor. This is accomplished by board members who I wheedle constantly and occasionally bribe with chocolates.

    Each donor also gets their annual giving statement and our annual report in January in a nice, gigantic envelope, regardless of gift size.

    Our retention rate is off the chart!

  • Lisa Saneda
    Lisa Saneda
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant

    Our acknowledgement process has been in flux this year due to working from home and lack of staff. However, each week we send an email acknowledgement to anyone giving $1-$99. Anyone $100 or more receives a mailed template acknowledgement depending on designation. Handwritten notes are on each of these letters, even if it's just “thank you." Major donors and board members also are sent emails by multiple senior staff as well as phone calls from the appropriate staff members.

    Right now, not everyone is working onsite (me included) so I have been putting the letters together and emailing to the appropriate staff. It's up to them to follow-thru on the process, however they scan the final copies to me to upload into Altru and they enter their own interactions.

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