Imagine you’re 8 years old. The park near your house is old, littered with broken glass, all of the playground equipment has been removed because of safety concerns. Now you’re shown some pictures of how the park will look once it’s been cleaned and rebuilt, furnished with new equipment and a water play feature, birdhouses and flowers. What would you write in a thank-you note to the donor whose gift is making that transformation possible?

In an earlier life and another state, I worked for a foundation that made a grant to refurbish a neglected community park located next to an elementary school. A team of landscape architects presented the renovation plans at a school assembly, after which teachers encouraged their students to write thank-you notes to the anonymous donor. The timing was perfect, since the students were fired up about the images they had seen of the new park. I enjoyed those letters so much that I kept copies of my favorites to use as a simple checklist for making my own thank-you letters more compelling.

1. Avoid business and legal jargon. Words and phrases that originated in the boardroom or were pulled from a contract may add a veneer of importance to your correspondence, but they have no place in a thank-you letter. Some of the terms I most dislike: “leverage,” “strategize,” and “value-added.” Sadly, they roll off the tongue (or keyboard) very easily. Swat them down when they fly out, and replace them with something from the heart. Here are two examples from the elementary school that I admire. They both strike a professional—even formal—tone, but they avoid jargon altogether:

Dear Donor:

I am a 12-year-old boy in the community. I am happy to have this opportunity to thank you. I’m so excited about the new sand volleyball court, and the extended basketball court. I’m glad that someone is finally trying to do something about our community. For years the park has been filthy, and there’s been a lot of graffiti. Your donation will make this community proud of their park, and our community will try hard to keep the park safe and in mint condition.

The second writer, young Charles, begins with familiar language that signals the importance he attaches to the gift, but he soon ditches that voice for a more personal tone:

Dear Sir/Madam:

We humbly appreciate the gift that we are about to receive. This is the biggest event in our neighborhood ever so I wrote a poem of appreciation:

Generosity
Is very pleasant to me

Thank you very much

Love, Charles

Dear Donor:

You are very, very kind to be giving us this awesome, gorgeous, beautiful, exciting new park. Just to help you out, [Community Elementary School] students are going to plant flowers. Thank you very much from your 3^rd grade friend.

***

Dear Donor:

Everyone in my school will gladly take the opportunity to help in any way, because we love the park that you are going to build. Everyone in our community will love the new park. Thanks a bunch for the funds.

         Note: I really love that closing line.

3. Emphasize both the short- and long-term impact of the gift.

Dear Donor:

I will like to give you a warm thanks for your generous offer to give a fund to build a park. You must like kids a lot. Imagine what you could do with that fund. But instead you used that fund on the life of children. Your generosity gives kids a chance to play where it’s nice and clean. Your generosity may bring back the spirit in our community. When the park is finished kids will like to feel the wind blow in their clothes as they have fun. You will be remembered for your kindness for centuries.

This may be my favorite letter of all. It begins with a touch of stiff formality, but you can almost see the wheels turning in the author’s head as, sentence by sentence, the student draws closer to understanding the true impact of the gift. The new park will make the children of the neighborhood happy, it will be clean and pleasant, it may bring back the spirit in the community. What more important and lasting benefit could there be? Every gift has an element of the eternal—find it, and elevate it.

4. Highlight a key point by careful repetition.

Dear Donor:

I love parks expspeshaley [sic] the plan for building our new park. The park looks very neat! I really want to thank you for making our lives change for the better! The park will provide a healthy and safe place for free time and a thousand other things. Thank you Donor. I will have so much fun on the new playground.

P.S. Don’t forget you made my life change. [Emphasis added.]

This is the letter that stuck most firmly in my mind over the years. As a rule I don’t use postscripts for Elon thank-you letters, but I learned from this writer that repeating a thought at both the beginning and the end of a thank-you letter can be effective. I expspeshaley like that the first mention of changed lives is general (“our lives”), while the second is personal (“Don’t forget you made my life change”). It has been 20 years now, and I have not forgotten.

Another lesson inherent in this: Never underestimate the power and charm of a thank-you note written in crayon on construction paper. Even if your organization doesn’t have a ready supply of elementary school-aged children, solicit notes or quotes from the people, young or old or in-between, who benefit from a funded program or facility. Those who are most directly affected by the gift are potentially the most compelling communicators. Use their words, in whole or in part, to make a thank-you letter shine.

For those of you who are interested in writing with more heart, I recommend the works of John Simmons. This is from his book Dark Angels: How Writing Releases Creativity at Work:

We always have the option of putting more (or less) of our personality into writing. The … need to say “thank you” [is] the simplest and commonest expression of emotion in human exchanges. Except that “thank you” is often said without real emotion; is hardly more than a clearing of the throat. … We need to reach out and engage with the audience, perhaps especially when expressing gratitude. We should all see this as a chance to express more of our own personality—unless we are, by nature, blinkered egomaniacs steeped in a constant attitude of ingratitude.

I am confident that there are no blinkered, egomaniacal, ungrateful donor relations professionals on this planet. So open your heart. Feel the gratitude that you’re trying to convey on behalf of your organization. Imagine you’re 8 years old, and the park on the corner near your house is about to be transformed. Now write down how that feels.

Vicki Winslow
Coordinator of Donor Relations – Acknowledgments
Elon University

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