Holiday Cards - are people still sending them?

@Elizabeth Johnson I'm curious what others do as well. We still send physical cards in the mail. There's no way to truly measure how effective they are, but we send them to people we consider our top/loyal donors. So, donors over a certain amount, monthly recurring donors, and those with planned gifts as well as key volunteers, etc. It is an expense, but we feel it's important to mail things that don't have an ask associated with it - especially headed into the end of the calendar year when we have a lot of solicitations by mail and email. We just send good wishes for the holiday season and new year. We spread them among staff to sign special messages to people and have a more generic message for those we don't know well.

@Elizabeth Johnson, we send holiday cards. As a religious org, it aligns so well with our mission, and it's one of the only genuine “thinking of you” touches that our low-level donors receive, so we feel it has value. Being a monastery, our message is probably not one others could replicate well: "Our monks will be praying a novena for you on the nine days leading up to Christmas."

Anecdotally, we've received positive feedback from donors on the mailings. We operate our own printery house, so our costs are reduced; however, I know it does have price attached, and some organizations with a different mission might not see the same benefits.

Our top 400 donors get a hand-addressed, hand-signed card, so pretty sure those get opened. And our top 200 get personal notes written in their cards. Society members all get Thanksgiving cards ("thankful for you"). We use the four major religious holidays (Easter, All Souls, Thanksgiving, Christmas) as rallying points, often paired with visits, for our 3 personal touches per donor per year.