Saying ‘thank you’ to donors who have contributed to your fundraising campaigns is a great way to show your appreciation, and it’s also a good idea to maintain contact with them, with a view toward future contributions. If you’ve collaborated with Bricks-R-Us in the past, you might think that having a specially engraved memorial brick with the donor’s name on it is sufficient for giving recognition for their donation, but that’s not quite true. While these well-made bricks are an outstanding perk, an actual human acknowledgement is something you just can’t beat for showing real appreciation.
Hand-written notes
A note which expresses your gratitude for someone’s donation is an excellent touch in several ways. Because you took the time to write it by hand rather than printing it out, it shows the contributor that you took the time to acknowledge their donation. This note doesn’t need to be particularly long, but it should contain a heartfelt appreciation for the donor’s contribution, and a wish for their continued health and success.
Social media acknowledgement
These days the best way to get something noticed is to post it on one ore more of the social media platforms. Maybe you can’t publicly acknowledge all contributors to your recent fundraising campaign, but you should certainly feature some of the more generous donors in your announcement. This will reach a great many people, and will let your contributors know how much you value their participation.
Personal visits
Everyone involved with fundraising campaigns has a busy schedule, but if you take time from your own schedule to pay a personal visit to donors, you’ll be showing them just how much you appreciate their involvement. You don’t need to have a moving speech prepared or any long-winded expression of gratitude, because your contributors will know that taking the time for a personal visit is a genuine way of showing your appreciation.
Tiered system of recognition
This can be a fun way of recognizing donors’ contributions, and it may also even encourage larger donations. Setup a tiered system of recognition which is tied to donation levels, and assign titles which are relevant to those donation levels. For instance, if your campaign was all about raising money for the homeless, you can have donation levels such as $50 – Friend of the Homeless, $100 – Provider for the Homeless, and $500 – Champion of the Homeless. Taking this approach might just kill two birds with one stone.
Donor appreciation party
This way of showing your gratitude doesn’t need to be anything elaborate, and in fact an elaborate party might make your donors wonder about how money is being spent. But you can certainly organize a simple get-together with a nice dinner and a little talk at some point which recognizes the contributions made by specific donors. This could also serve as a celebration for your fundraising staff for a job well done, and it will at the same time show your gratitude for donors who made the campaign a success.
