What Would Emily Post Say?

A couple of months ago, I watched in amazement as my colleague Andrew Olsen became a target in an online discussion about the pros and cons of thanking donors.

Wow.

It turns out that there are fundraisers out there who believe that it is inappropriate for a donor to expect some type of thank you message when they donate to an organization. In fact, several fundraisers have done “tests” where they give a small amount of money to a number of organizations, and then see how long it takes to receive a thank you message from them. Sadly, in most cases, the thank you either shows up months after the donation was made, or, all too often, the donor isn’t thanked at all.

I’m not talking about lovely handwritten thank you notes (although I think this is a form of communication that should be more common). I’m talking about some — any — form of thanking someone who gave you a donation.

Here we are in an industry where the churn is such that nearly 60% of first-time donors don’t give a second time.

And we don’t think it’s a good idea to say thank you? How can this be?

Here are some of the explanations I’ve seen for not saying “thank you” to a donor:

1. Donors have money, and therefore are privileged, and therefore it would be pandering to them to thank them. It’s their responsibility to give.

2. Organizations should be keeping their overhead low, and having staff take the time to say thank you is a waste of resources. In one case, a writer said that a donor refused to donate to an organization that did thank them for this reason.

3. Fundraisers just work too hard with too few resources and not enough appreciation. Saying thank you is asking them to do even more work.

If you’re thinking that this is a ridiculous discussion, I agree. Still, more than half of the donations given in these “tests” don’t receive any kind of thank you. Why aren’t all donors — donors of anything, money or otherwise, in any amount — thanked as standard procedure?

Emily Post said, “Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others”. Most, if not all, children are taught the words “please” and “thank you” at about 18 months, and that “etiquette” is typically reinforced in nursery school, kindergarten and onwards. How is it that there are adults out there who didn’t learn basic manners?

It feels like maybe the people who actively fight saying thank you have other issues to deal with. It goes without saying (IMHO) that they shouldn’t be working in fundraising. If you don’t have an awareness of the feelings of others, how can you function as part of an organization, be sensitive to other’s needs, or ask for money?

Thank you for reading! If you’re inspired to chime in with your opinion, please comment below.

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- Lisa