The spiritual practice of writing a thank-you letter. Part 2 of the Annual Blessings of Charitable Receipts. Writing prompts and a sample thank-you letter from the perspective of a minister of a tiny church which you are welcome to adapt.

The annual blessing of charitable receipts - turn a chore into a blessing.

Each receipt tells a story. Someone cares enough about your organization to send you money. Your ministry is that important to them. Acknowledge their generosity with both accuracy and gratitude.

A primer on Canadian receipting for churches and small charities, including links to helpful resources.

Making it less weird to talk about gifts in wills

If you give a wedding gift, you expect to receive a thank-you note.  It’s common courtesy.  If you don’t give a gift, you generally don’t get a thank-you note.  Obvious, right? However, in church giving often nobody gets a thank-you note.  Nobody gets thanked.  Really.  In many churches, donors get an annual receipt with no thank-you letter. But I’m proposing here that everybody gets a thank-you note. Here’s why: gratitude generally and thank-you letters in particular make a good springboard into generosity.

The hand-written notes appeared a month before the prefab letters. It seems paradoxical, but apparently a personal note is much quicker to write than a generic boilerplate.

This little experiment has shown how important thank-you letters are. I feel like if I didn't give again to some of these charities, they wouldn't notice.