Welcoming and thanking a new donor
How the Non-profit pack welcomes a new donor: a thank-you call, their preferences, the gift confirmed in the bank, a receipt and an update on its impact.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Non-profit businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
A first gift is the start of a relationship, not the end of a transaction. Someone who has given once may well give again, but only if the organisation notices them, thanks them properly and shows them what their money did. A donor who hears nothing after giving has little reason to stay.
In a busy non-profit, the welcome is the part that slips. The gift arrives during a funding deadline or a programme crisis, a generic e-mail goes out, and the donor hears nothing more until the next appeal. Nobody decided to neglect them. There was simply no process that made the welcome happen.
The Non-profit & fundraising pack in Achekam's Industry CRM gives every new donor the same welcome, step by step. This article walks through it.
How the pack sees your supporters
The pack uses the words a fundraiser uses. People who support you are called Supporters, and the pack keeps Donors, Donations and pledges by fund and campaign, Volunteers with their shifts, and Grant applications.
Keeping each donation against its fund and campaign matters for stewardship as much as for reporting. When you thank a donor or tell them what their gift achieved, you need to know whether they gave to the general fund, the bursary fund or the winter appeal. Thanking someone for supporting the wrong programme undoes the effect of the thank-you.
Step one: call and thank the donor
The donor welcome workflow starts with a call to thank the donor. A call is personal in a way an e-mail is not, and for many donors it is the first time anyone from the organisation has spoken to them.
Keep it short and genuine:
- Thank them by name for their gift and mention what they gave to.
- Ask what drew them to the cause. The answer tells you what to report back on later.
- Ask how they would like to hear from you, which leads straight into the next step.
- Do not ask for anything. A thank-you call that turns into a request is not a thank-you call.
If the donor is a company or a foundation, the call goes to the person who arranged the gift, and it is just as worthwhile.
Step two: record their preferences
Next, the workflow records the donor's preferences. Ask, and write down, how they want to be contacted, how often, whether they want their name published in your annual report or prefer to stay anonymous, and which parts of your work interest them most.
Recording preferences turns good intentions into practice. When the next newsletter or appeal goes out, the record shows who asked for e-mail only, who wants to hear about the bursary programme, and who asked never to be named. Respecting those wishes is the cheapest way to keep a donor. The Association of Fundraising Professionals' Donor Bill of Rights lists what donors can expect from the organisations they support, including information on how their gifts are used, acknowledgement and confidentiality.
Step three: confirm the gift reached the bank
Before anything is sent, the workflow confirms that the gift actually reached the bank. In the pack, a gift is marked received by a person who has seen it in the bank. No bank, debit-order or payment feed is read.
That is a deliberate check rather than a gap to work around. A pledge, a promised transfer and a debit order that has not yet run are not money in the account. Thanking a donor for a gift that bounced, or sending a receipt for money that never arrived, creates an awkward conversation and a record your auditor will question. Make it the job of one person in finance to confirm gifts against the bank statement, and let the workflow wait for them.
Step four: a receipt or acknowledgement
Once the gift is confirmed, the donor is sent a receipt or an acknowledgement. Make it prompt, and check before it goes that the donor's name is shown as they asked, and that the amount, the date received and the purpose of the gift are right.
South African organisations whose donors expect tax certificates should agree with their accountant how those certificates are issued.
Step five: tell them what their gift made possible
The final step sends the donor an update on what the gift made possible. This is the message that turns a one-off donor into a regular supporter, and it is the one most organisations forget.
A good update is specific and honest. Name the programme, describe what happened, and where you can, tell a short story of one person or one project the work reached, with their permission. Do not inflate the result or claim the donor's gift alone achieved something it shared with others. Donors forgive modest results; they rarely forgive exaggeration.
Tasks that arrive when they are due
The workflow creates its tasks stage by stage, so the impact update does not sit on someone's list from the day the gift arrives; it appears when the earlier steps are done. Tasks can also have subtasks up to three levels deep, which helps when, for example, the update for a major donor needs input from a programme manager and photographs from the field.
Each industry pack sets its own words, record types, workflows and reminders, so these steps are part of the Non-profit pack as you switch it on, not something you have to build.
Before you switch it on
Agree three things with your team:
- Who makes thank-you calls, and how quickly after a gift.
- Who confirms gifts against the bank, and how often they check.
- Who writes impact updates, and where the stories and photographs come from.
Donors are one kind of supporter; for the others, see onboarding volunteers with screening and agreement and grant applications from research to funder reports.
Look back at your most recent new donors, and ask honestly which of them heard from you after the first receipt.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
