There is no need to send a thank-you letter if you don’t care whether or not the donor gives again. That’s the fundraising angle, but to me this is a theological question. If you’re not grateful to God for the person’s contribution to your church, why is that? Each donation tells a story. Someone cares enough about your organization to send money. Your ministry is that important to them.

For many charities and churches, it’s time to prepare charitable tax receipts. This blog continues a series on turning the chore of annual receipts into a blessing.

People *actually open* the receipt letter, or the email. They are paying attention! Please, please, please seize this opportunity to include a thank-you letter! The only exception I can think of would be if your church or charity doesn’t care whether this donor gives again or not. This blog begins a three-part series on turning the chore of annual receipts into a blessing. The goal is both accurate and grateful communication.

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.