Creative Ways to Appreciate Your Nonprofit Donors

Thanking and recognizing your donors is a year-round activity and it’s important to embed the spirit of gratitude in the very fabric of your organization. Thanking donors encourages existing donors to keep giving and shows you care about your supporters. To help you do that, we’ve come up with a list of ten ways to thank your donors for their gifts.

1. Call your donors

This is a simple, yet effective, donor recognition idea. Hearing a real voice over the phone helps build connections and establish trust.

To make this idea happen, try mobilizing volunteers to call donors.

For an even more impactful approach, consider getting your board members or the leadership members to place the calls. Be mindful of your Board members’ schedules and only have them do this once or twice per year, calling 15-20 donors each.

Do this no later than two months after your donors have donated or pledged.

Call as many donors as possible, if not all, regardless of the size of their gift.

To make this process as efficient and as smooth as possible, schedule some donor thank you phone calls into your team’s calendar every week or organize a thank-a-thon, an office “donor calling” event where you can spend a whole day calling donors to thank them.

2. Create a “thank you” video

Nonprofits usually associate this donor appreciation idea with the end of the year. However, videos are impactful in a way that emails and letters aren’t. They help donors connect to the volunteers/staff/beneficiaries in a more powerful way.

Furthermore, videos are generally quite shareable, which helps with distributing them and publicly appraising your donors (if that’s what you intend to do).

Chances are, you have someone on your team in possession of a good quality camera (in fact, some phone cameras will do the trick) and someone who has basic video editing knowledge.

The options with this idea are endless. Get your creative juices flowing! The only “must” is to thank your donors. The rest is optional.

You can opt for an animated video such as this one. or a video like this one in which you feature staff members, volunteers, and/or beneficiaries. The second one might involve more individuals but is generally easier to edit.

3. Write a “thank you” letter

Although videos and phone calls generally create a more personal connection between your nonprofit and your donors, sometimes letters can provide a personal, yet professional touch when thanking your donor. Sometimes, letters are preferable or more achievable given the size of your nonprofit’s donor base.

Although handwritten letters add a more personal touch to your donor appreciation, especially in today’s digital age, sometimes handwriting all of your letters simply isn’t feasible. In case you’re running against the clock, create a heartfelt email “thank you”.

If you’re a small nonprofit, or just starting one, consider the handwritten “thank you” letters now that your donor base is likely small and you need to grow it.

An interesting twist to this idea is sending postcards, especially if a lot of your donors live abroad.

4. Mention donors on social media

It’s impossible to ignore the ever-increasingly important role of social media. That is why nonprofits should have a clear social media strategy.

Social media can be a strong platform to thank and appreciate your donors. Social media allows for a low cost, public acknowledgment of your followers and donors.

Make sure you have your donors’ social media handles and feature them on your social media accounts by thanking them publicly. Tag them in photos, repost and retweet their content, use hashtags (e.g. #FollowFriday or #ThankfulThursday).

Use social media to build authentic connections with your audience and remember to share stories and invite people to be part of them.

You can either thank your donors in a more general way and address them as a group (a technique often used by larger nonprofits – in this case, you might want to highlight significant contributors) or highlight donors regularly regardless of the gift size (more appropriate for a smaller nonprofit).

5. Send photos and share stories

Photos and stories are powerful carriers for your nonprofit’s mission. Regularly inform your donors about the current state of your project, the progress you have made so far, and your future plans.

Photos and videos can be used to make your posts more attractive.

Your donors should see the impact that their donation has. Send out a status update when you’ve hit 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%! This builds credibility and trust and could encourage further donations.

Furthermore, every donor receives an automated thank you email once their donation is processed, but you should thank them again once the campaign is over.

Send or post photos of the projects or beneficiaries the donations helped. Use countdowns and charts to track progress.

6. Send gifts or tokens

Send your Donor gifts. Donors appreciate having physical tokens of their support to display.

You can design a variety of free customized items — from calendars to mugs and stickers. The simplest of free goodies can be great donor appreciation gifts. Send those out together with thank you notes.

You can also send out books or framed pictures of your programs in action.

An excellent way to mix things up is to arrange for perks for your major donors. For example, you can get a good deal with a local theatre company and invite some of your donors to go with you to a show or performance.

Be careful with gifting though! An interesting study by the Yale researchers George Newman and Jeremy Shen showed that the prospect of receiving a gift activated a feeling of selfishness which, in turn, reduced altruism and hence cut the average donation.

Try to avoid this, try reframing the gifting context (e.g. by having your mug on display, your colleagues will see it and donate too”) or surprising the donors by sending a gift after a donation.

7. Be thoughtful

If possible, make notes of personal details you hear in conversation with donors.

For a smaller nonprofit, it might be feasible to remember the personal details of many donors.

E.g.

If Molly tells you her daughter is celebrating her 6th birthday this weekend? Ask how the party was the next time you talk to her. People will always appreciate the fact that they were heard. You can also pay close attention on social media for birthdays, weddings, engagements, births, and other important milestones. Send cards or make a phone call for these. That way, your donor will know that they’re on the top of your mind.

If your nonprofit is larger, this might not be possible. Luckily, there are many other ways you can appreciate your donors by being thoughtful.

E.g.

Acknowledge every donor’s donor anniversary. Make a point to do this regardless of whether someone has been giving for 1 year or they’re celebrating their 10th anniversary. This is a great donor recognition idea because most likely, your donors will be surprised to get a card celebrating this occasion.

8. Design memorable experiences

For something more unique, think of interesting and memorable experiences your donors might want to engage in.

E.g.

Does your nonprofit help animals? Let donors choose an image of a paw print and write their name on it.

You could give your donor a personalized tour of the organization or the project.

Another idea is to organize a Q&A session about your nonprofit. Every few months, invite a couple of donors to your offices after working hours and have a general question and answer session about what you’re doing and the impact you’re making.

Providing opportunities for engagement is a great way to allow donors to get to know your nonprofit on a more personal and intimate level.

If tours and Q&A sessions aren’t your thing, run a ‘lunch & learn’ session or invite a couple of donors to some board meetings.

9. Organize an event

Events are a good way to meet some of your donors face-to-face and foster personal relationships.

Naturally, you could go all in and organize a gala evening (especially towards the end of the year), but organizing a simple cocktail party or a wine tasting event, or even a beach day or a picnic in the park – depending on the culture and mission of your nonprofit.

E.g. If your nonprofit is an animal rescue organization, you could organize a day at an animal shelter.

It’s generally a good idea to treat your event like a get-together: make conversations a central point, taking care to strike a balance between socializing and promoting your nonprofit. Don’t make your donors feel that they took time out of their own schedule just to hear the same things in person which they do in emails.

It’s also a good idea to invite a mix of high-profile donors and cold prospects to your events.

10. Welcome the new and cultivate the old
Both existing and new donors are crucial to your nonprofit’s growth. In order to welcome the new donors, create donor welcome packages.
A thoughtful onboarding campaign to welcome new donors to your nonprofit teaches them your values and makes them aware of your needs. The presence of an onboarding process is not only helpful in showing people who you are, but it also keeps your new donors plugged in and reminded of your mission.
The welcome pack could include, but not limited to:
A hand-signed thank you/welcome letter from the executive director, telling the donor the difference their donation is going to make;
An overview of member benefits;
A listing of upcoming tours and events;
The most recent newsletter;
A brief invitation to volunteer with a couple of specific, ultra-short-term opportunities.
To cultivate the existing donors, beyond the ideas presented above, it is helpful to design a “Stewardship Matrix”. The Matrix helps your team understand different activities your nonprofit will undertake at different levels of gifting (e.g. $20, $50, $100, etc.).
This tiered system allows for grouping of your donors (e.g. if your organization is focused on the environment, you may want to set up donations tiers where $20 = Friend of the Forest, $50 = Tree Hugger, etc.)