Hi all -
We are in the process of reviewing and/or overhauling our acknowledgment process. I am looking for some feedback.
Our managing director wants to play a bigger role in acknowledging our donors, which is great. However, he is pretty dead-set against including the standard IRS "language" at the bottom of the letter (which is what we've always done). He wants the letter to be more personal, and feels that the tax language destroys this somehow.
After some discussion, we think we may have arrived at a solution of sorts, which is to run the letter sans the IRS language, and include some kind of a "buck slip" which would detail the gift specifics (amount, date received) plus the language.
I am wondering what other organizations are currently doing, and/or if anyone would be willing to share samples of their acknowledgment letters and/or receipts.
Thanks much!
-Lisa McColgan
Annual Fund Coordinator, Huntington Theatre Company
Lisa,
i am curious, what was the standard IRS language you were using?
I am not sure what your gift volumn is but it sounds like ALOT of extra work to create two pieces of paper, and make sure they end up in the right envelope together.
We are using a very personalized (mail merge) letter, that talks mainly about their membership and BAM and such but includes this sentence:
For your records, please note that your contribution is tax-deductible as permitted by law. Details are outlined below, and we recommend that you retain this document for tax purposes.
The following sentence is added (through mail merge logic) if they waived their membership benefits:
We have waived your non-deductible membership benefits so that this gift is fully tax-deductible.
Then the letter ends with a goodbye, hope to see you often, and a signature and such and in the bottom we list the detail of their gift (date, amount, receipt number, value of goods and services, ...) Again, here at BAM we are also very concerned about the look of this letter, so the weight is definitly on a big thank you and all the exciting things they can now do with their membership, or in case of a sponsor, all the great things WE will do with their money, and so on and so forth. But we did want this to be a receipt as well, so this information just sits on the bottom. hope you can talk to your managing director one more time. Monika
Then the letter ends with a goodbye, hope to see you often, and a signature and such and in the bottom we list the detail of their gift (date, amount, receipt number, value of goods and services, ...)
Again, here at BAM we are also very concerned about the look of this letter, so the weight is definitly on a big thank you and all the exciting things they can now do with their membership, or in case of a sponsor, all the great things WE will do with their money, and so on and so forth. But we did want this to be a receipt as well, so this information just sits on the bottom.
hope you can talk to your managing director one more time.
Monika
I’m with Monika – the possibilities for errors with two pieces of paper are scary.
Here is the language we put at the bottom of the letter, below the signature, in smaller type:
Strathmore gratefully acknowledges your gift to the Strathmore Hall Foundation, Inc. Amounts in excess of the fair market value of goods and services received are deductible to the fullest extent of the law. Please retain this letter as the formal record of your gift.
Date: June 3, 2009
Amount: $5,000.00 (check 45318)
Fair Market Value: $ 720.00
If there is no FMV, the statement is like the one Monika uses.
It really doesn’t “interfere” at all with the text of the letter, which is full of gratitude and appreciation, especially since it is below the signature.
Of course, you could have a two-page letter and have the tax language on the second page. At least that way it would be in one merge.
_______________
Julie P. Hamre
Development Associate
Strathmore Hall Foundation, Inc.
5301 Tuckerman Lane
North Bethesda, MD 20852-3385
301.581.5136; fax 301.581.5201
www.strathmore.org
Become a Strathmore Member!
Support what you love. Members enjoy advance
ticket purchase, discounts in the Shops at
Strathmore and Tea Room and access to special events.
Join now at http://www.strathmore.org/support/membership.asp
or call (301) 581-5135
-----Original Message----- From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Monika Jouvert Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2009 1:27 PM To: Julie Hamre Subject: Re: [Tessitura Development Forum] Acknowledgment question Lisa, i am curious, what was the standard IRS language you were using? I am not sure what your gift volumn is but it sounds like ALOT of extra work to create two pieces of paper, and make sure they end up in the right envelope together. We are using a very personalized (mail merge) letter, that talks mainly about their membership and BAM and such but includes this sentence: For your records, please note that your contribution is tax-deductible as permitted by law. Details are outlined below, and we recommend that you retain this document for tax purposes. The following sentence is added (through mail merge logic) if they waived their membership benefits: We have waived your non-deductible membership benefits so that this gift is fully tax-deductible. Then the letter ends with a goodbye, hope to see you often, and a signature and such and in the bottom we list the detail of their gift (date, amount, receipt number, value of goods and services, ...) Again, here at BAM we are also very concerned about the look of this letter, so the weight is definitly on a big thank you and all the exciting things they can now do with their membership, or in case of a sponsor, all the great things WE will do with their money, and so on and so forth. But we did want this to be a receipt as well, so this information just sits on the bottom. hope you can talk to your managing director one more time. Monika From: Lisa McColgan <bounce-lisamccolgan5409@tessituranetwork.com> Sent: 8/4/2009 11:15:37 AM Hi all - We are in the process of reviewing and/or overhauling our acknowledgment process. I am looking for some feedback. Our managing director wants to play a bigger role in acknowledging our donors, which is great. However, he is pretty dead-set against including the standard IRS "language" at the bottom of the letter (which is what we've always done). He wants the letter to be more personal, and feels that the tax language destroys this somehow. After some discussion, we think we may have arrived at a solution of sorts, which is to run the letter sans the IRS language, and include some kind of a "buck slip" which would detail the gift specifics (amount, date received) plus the language. I am wondering what other organizations are currently doing, and/or if anyone would be willing to share samples of their acknowledgment letters and/or receipts. Thanks much! -Lisa McColgan Annual Fund Coordinator, Huntington Theatre Company This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!
From: Lisa McColgan <bounce-lisamccolgan5409@tessituranetwork.com> Sent: 8/4/2009 11:15:37 AM
This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!
Our new President/CEO also likes to send personal notes for our major donors. However, we’ve started a process where the devo staff lets him know when a major gift has come in and he sends his own semi-canned TY note and we send our usual donor receipt with the IRS info. Kills a few more trees, but we feel the additional touches are worth it.
If you’d like the language he’s using, I’ll be happy to ask if he’s willing to share.
Julie
Julie Olsen
Annual Giving and Engagement Officer
Walton Arts Center
P.O. Box 3547
Fayetteville, AR 72702
jolsen@waltonartscenter.org
ph. 479.571.2759
fax 479.443.6461
Visit www.waltonartscenter.org - choose your own seats online!
P Please consider the environment before printing this email.
From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Lisa McColgan Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2009 11:16 AM To: Julie Olsen Subject: [Tessitura Development Forum] Acknowledgment question
Hi Lisa, we do pretty much the same thing Julie mentioned. In addition to our standard acknowledgement letter which comes from our Director of Development, our Executive Director will sign his own acknowledgement letter for major donors and anyone else we identify for him. His letter is a few short sentences, in his language, which does give it a more personal touch.
Anthony
This isn't a Tessitura answer, but I think it might be something to consider, especially from the saving-trees angles. A lot of fundraising experts whose seminars I've been to strongly recommend a phone call, preferably within two days of receipt of a donation, from a board member or in your case the MD. This really adds a personal touch, plus you can send the boilerplate acknowledgment/tax info separately. Even leaving a warm thank-you on a voice-mail message is effective.
-Jesse Cohen
Director of Development and Communications, The Metropolitan Opera Guild
From: Lisa McColgan <bounce-lisamccolgan5409@tessituranetwork.com>Sent: 8/4/2009 11:15:37 AM
We’ve done thank you calls for a number of years – my college has also adopted that practice and asks board members to call donors at a certain level. You can’t go wrong, and as you say, it’s much easier to get a volunteer to call to say thank you than to ask for money.
-----Original Message----- From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Lisa McColgan Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 10:27 AM To: Julie Hamre Subject: Re: [Tessitura Development Forum] Acknowledgment question Hi everyone - Thanks for your responses! So far it seems that what we've been doing all along is the right way to go, which is to continue to include the "language" at the bottom of the letter. I think we will present the second, personalized letter to major donors (or donors at a certain level and above) as the solution. We are looking into more thank-you calls as well. For the past two seasons we have conducted a "thank-a-thon" in our administrative offices. We've found that it's a good way to get our Overseers more involved, as they're simply calling to thank our subscribers and donors, rather than asking them for money - which scares them away from volunteering. We've also talked about providing board members with "take home" lists of $250+ donors to call. -Lisa Lisa D. McColgan Huntington Theatre Company Office of Development 264 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02115-4606 (617) 273-1546 >>> bounce-jessecohen2610@tessituranetwork.com 8/11/2009 10:16 AM >>> This isn't a Tessitura answer, but I think it might be something to consider, especially from the saving-trees angles. A lot of fundraising experts whose seminars I've been to strongly recommend a phone call, preferably within two days of receipt of a donation, from a board member or in your case the MD. This really adds a personal touch, plus you can send the boilerplate acknowledgment/tax info separately. Even leaving a warm thank-you on a voice-mail message is effective. -Jesse Cohen Director of Development and Communications, The Metropolitan Opera Guild From: Lisa McColgan <bounce-lisamccolgan5409@tessituranetwork.com> Sent: 8/4/2009 11:15:37 AM Hi all - We are in the process of reviewing and/or overhauling our acknowledgment process. I am looking for some feedback. Our managing director wants to play a bigger role in acknowledging our donors, which is great. However, he is pretty dead-set against including the standard IRS "language" at the bottom of the letter (which is what we've always done). He wants the letter to be more personal, and feels that the tax language destroys this somehow. After some discussion, we think we may have arrived at a solution of sorts, which is to run the letter sans the IRS language, and include some kind of a "buck slip" which would detail the gift specifics (amount, date received) plus the language. I am wondering what other organizations are currently doing, and/or if anyone would be willing to share samples of their acknowledgment letters and/or receipts. Thanks much! -Lisa McColgan Annual Fund Coordinator, Huntington Theatre Company This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you! This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!
Hi everyone -
Thanks for your responses! So far it seems that what we've been doing all along is the right way to go, which is to continue to include the "language" at the bottom of the letter. I think we will present the second, personalized letter to major donors (or donors at a certain level and above) as the solution.
We are looking into more thank-you calls as well. For the past two seasons we have conducted a "thank-a-thon" in our administrative offices. We've found that it's a good way to get our Overseers more involved, as they're simply calling to thank our subscribers and donors, rather than asking them for money - which scares them away from volunteering. We've also talked about providing board members with "take home" lists of $250+ donors to call.
-Lisa
Lisa D. McColgan Huntington Theatre Company Office of Development 264 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02115-4606 (617) 273-1546 >>> bounce-jessecohen2610@tessituranetwork.com 8/11/2009 10:16 AM >>>
Hi Lisa,
We have a couple of different renditions of our tax language.
For gifts to our Capital Campaign, the tax information is on the same page as the letter.
No goods or services have been provided by the Orange County Performing Arts Center in consideration of this contribution.
The Orange County Performing Arts Center is a non-profit tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code - Tax Identification Number 23-7287150.
Please retain this acknowledgement for your tax records.
For gifts to our operating fund at the lower levels, a condensed version such as this is used. For larger gifts, the tax information and receipt is on a second page. This information is altered based on the membership level.
In compliance with the Internal Revenue Service, a charity must determine the market value of benefits and list the deductible and non-deductible amounts for contributions. The Orange County Performing Arts Center estimates the value of Patron of Tribute membership services and events at $xx per year.
The Orange County Performing Arts Center advises you to seek your own legal and tax advice in connection with gift and planning matters. The Center does not provide legal or tax advice. This communication (including any attachments) may not be used for the purpose of avoiding tax related penalties.
For gifts from our major donors and Board members, a letter also goes out from our President and Chairman of the Board. They only receive these two letters when their written pledge is received or if an outright gift comes in, and it is seldom sent with the tax information. It's a lot of process work and paper for sure, but it seems like our constituents are enjoying the extra attention from the President and Chairman.
Good luck with whichever route you choose.
Amber AlbertOCPAC
We have the standard ack letter that includes the IRS verbiage and goods and services infomation. In addition, our executive director has his own thank you letter ack letter for gifts over $5000. It does not have the IRS verbiage and is just a thank signed by him. These folks will get two letters, each in its own envelope and are not usually mailed the same day. The letters are Tessitura generated and one is prepared by our data entry clerk and the other by our ED's excutive assistant.