Nonprofits Say Please. But Do We Still Have to Say Thank You

Nonprofits Say Please. But Do We Still Have to Say Thank You?

The art of the thank you isn’t dead, but it hasn’t frozen itself in time either.

As it turns out, our expectations for how to give and receive a thank you have a striking tie to how long it takes us to scroll down in the drop-down menu to find our birth year. The longer we scroll, the higher our affinity for the trusty pen and paper approach.

But as recent articles in the Washington Post and Business Insider explore, the generational gap gets wider all the time when it comes to etching our gratitude with penmanship.

As one anonymous Millennial wrote in to the Washington Post: “…our way of saying ‘thank you’ is different. We don’t expect to receive thank-you cards, so please don’t expect us to send them.”

So as a nonprofit with (hopefully) a wide demographic range of supporters, what do we do when we get a donation?

Yes, Thank You Still Matters

The argument really isn’t about whether expressing thanks is necessary and beneficial, but rather the how-to. We could go on and on about the potential good that expressed gratitude does in the nonprofit-donor relationship.

• A thank you helps the donor feel seen, personally. And who doesn’t want that?
• When a thank you is done right, it communicates to the donor what kind of difference their gift made and what would have been missed without the contribution.
• Genuine gratitude and communicated reliance on donors increase the chances that they will continue to give on a recurring basis. Thank yous build loyalty.
• It shows we have basic people skills. It’s human nature for people to want their generosity to be needed and appreciated. It’s really that simple.

How to Meet Thank You Expectations

We can argue over which thank you method is best. Alternatively, we have the opportunity instead to meet all our donors where they are.

Boomers, and sometimes Gen Xers, will probably love a handwritten thank you card. Millennials and Gen Zers will likely look for some love in their text or video messages, emails and DMs.

This is why it’s important to approach the thank you process armed with information about each donor, flexibility and the right tools to help us cover each medium.

There are a lot of great options out there for this, including our suite of thank you products at Click & Pledge that help automate but personalize the process.

Sincerity Wins

The traditional thank you note may have gone by the wayside for some, but gratefulness and humility as a response to someone’s generosity are never out of style. So when in doubt, just pick a way to express yourself, and go for it.

Here’s to lots of long-lasting donor relationships full of pleases and thank you.