Best practice for thanking supporters

Hello, @Inci-Stephanie Stoleru! Here's what I'm currently doing at my org, which is an online university in Albany, NY. It's a hybrid work environment, so we're onsite at least one day a week. I started here a little over a year ago, so I've been making adjustments to what was in place from my predecessor.

Acknowledgement Matrix
My team had created this before I got here and I modified it. Please send me a DM if you're interested in seeing what it looks like. Essentially, it details the rules for who gets what kind of acknowledgement letter (and possibly a thank you gift) based on a variety of factors which matter specifically to my org. It's divided into three main groups: mailed-in gifts, online gifts, and other (which includes gifts-in-kind and third-party direct deposit).

Within each group, I further define based on the gift amount. For my org, $250 is the minimum threshold for a major gift. It will differ for each org, so yours may be higher. This donation amount level determines if the corresponding ack letter gets a scanned signature or a live one. I implemented this rule about the signatures early on for the lower-level donors so that there wouldn't be delays in mailing out printed ack letters because the signer wasn't in the office to live sign them. Anyone who constitutes a major donor deserves a live signature, but those are fewer, so they won't hold up a bigger batch of smaller gifts.

For online gifts in general, I copy/pasted our ack letter text, including the tax language, into the email designer within the confirmations section of the NXT online form designer (section 4). I do not send out additional mailings to folks who give below $250 online unless they request it, they're a trustee or known major giver, or if they give to an appeal which includes a thank you gift. It saves a lot of paper.

Master Mail Merge Template
My org has different letter templates for different gifts and gets even more granular with who signs each of them. To keep things straight, I documented in my role's Policies & Procedures Manual what each template is for and who signs it. How many signers do you have at your org? Do they have a preference for which letters they want to sign live versus using a scanned signature?

Currently, I export all letters for a particular batch into a .csv file which includes the desired letter template and I merge it with a master mail merge template which brings together all of the individual templates into one place and merges them in one single document. I'm still working out the bugs in some of the formatting that shows up in the merged doc, but it's much faster than merging the templates individually. I Googled how to do this, so what I share below is the result of a fellow Raiser's Edge User's hard work (unfortunately, I can't find her name to be able to give her a proper shoutout.)

To get this started, create all of your individual Word templates and save/store them all in the same accessible spot. I put them in my department's SharePoint folder. The master template will live in that location as well. I haven't yet tried to put letters of different paper size in the same template—one of them is on monarch paper and all of the others are 81/2x11). An opportunity to experiment! Once you have the individual templates in place, you'll need to get hold of sample data in a .csv file next. You won't be able to add merge fields without it. Taking care of that, here's how to set up the master template:

1. Open a new Word doc and go to the Mailings tab.
2. In Rules, select the if/then/else rule. For the Field Name, select whatever header you used in your .csv to indicate the letter type the person will get. I used "Letter." For Comparison select, "equal to." For the Compare to, type in the name of the letter code as it appears in your data source (it must match exactly). You will now see this (make sure to toggle the field codes) {IF {MERGEFIELD Letter } = "Your Letter Name" "" "" }.
3. Place your curser between the first set of empty quotes and select "insert merge field" (yay, nested merge fields!) from your quick access toolbar and pick any field you want. It doesn't matter because you're going to change things within the next few steps.
4. With your curser inside the brackets you just created, rick click. Select "Edit Field." A dialogue box will appear.
5. Select "include text."
6. Under "Field properties" paste in the file path of the feeder letter you want to add. Since I use SharePoint, I will include instructions for how to locate the exact file path a little farther down. Once you've pasted the path, click OK.
7. To test that the file path works, try merging the letters. What comes up?

How to locate the exact file path of a file in SharePoint

1. In SharePoint, select the desired feeder letter and click on the three horizontal dots next to the file name.
2. Click "Details."
3. In the flyaway menu on the right, scroll down until you see "Path." Click on the copy icon next to Path to copy the file path.

How to give yourself the ability to toggle field codes

1. To add these, right click on the quick access toolbar in Word and follow the instructions in the dialogue box.
2. Select "View all Commands" so you can see all the options, and look for "View Field Codes" and "Insert Field Codes." Those are the two that you want.

Keeping Track of Thanking Supporters

To ensure that I know the stage of each batch of gifts I process, I set up a batch tracker spreadsheet (thank you, @Rochelle Toomer, for getting me into this habit!!) which includes columns for Acknowledged Status and Date Mailed. I update this after I've marked letters acknowledged in Raiser's Edge, and save it in a space that anyone in my team can find and check.

Regarding Letterbox

I have limited experience with it from working at a previous org, so please take my comments with a grain of salt. I was not particularly fond of it because of the limited font choices available. My org at the time had very specific fonts that we could use for our letters to keep branding consistent, and since that font was not among the choices, I did not feel comfortable using it to print ack letters. It may work for you, though.

I hope this helps! I would love to get into automation someday, but I'm not quite there yet.