Running a nonprofit is a lot of work. There’s a ton to do!

Constant fundraising.

Managing volunteers.

Bookkeeping.

Nurturing relationships with past donors.

The list goes on and on. Each one of these tasks could easily warrant it’s own blog post with tips, best practices, etc. But I’m going to focus on one that I feel is extremely important, and show how you can save some real time with it.

Nurturing Relationships with Past Donors

This is something that nonprofits absolutely must get right. It’s not always easy to make donors feel special and connected to your organization, but the dividends it pays is well worth it. Here’s why.

You’ve already sold them on your mission.

Half the battle is just communicating your message in an effective way that resonates with people.  If they’ve already given money to your organization, they believe in what you’re doing.  They’ve already bought in, so getting them to give again in the future will be less of a challenge than trying to appeal to someone new.

It’s extremely important that you continue to nurture this existing relationship, and there are many ways you can go about it.  Here’s a simple one.

Say “Thank You”

One thing your organization can do to nurture existing relationships, and is a no-brainer, is to send a Thank You note or letter to donors. It may seem small, but this gesture really does make donors feel appreciated.  Donors that feel appreciated will feel more connected to your organization, and will be more likely to give again. And if the Thank You is handwritten, even better!

If you’ve ever received some sort of handwritten note, wasn’t it a nice feeling knowing someone went out of their way to sit down and take the time to do it?  It’s really rare these days.

Whether you’re already doing it or not, sending handwritten Thank You notes can seem overwhelming when you have so many other things to do.  Plus, you have to actually remember to write and send them!

Sending a handwritten Thank You note to donors makes them feel special, and is a no-brainer.

Automate the Important

You may have heard this phrase before. It essentially means if something’s important, and you want to make sure it gets done, automate it.

Churches preach this to their members about tithing, and suggest that members set up automated, recurring giving.  The same “Automate the Important” principle can apply to so many other areas, including writing Thank You notes to your donors!

If something’s important, and you want to make sure it gets done, automate it.

Thank You cards without a Second Thought

You can use our integration with Zapier to automate the task of sending out handwritten Thank You cards to all of your donors!  Can you believe this?  Here’s how it works.

Zapier is a service that allows you to connect different services together to build custom workflows.  They currently have over 400 integrated services.  The two that we’re interested in to make our automated Thank You card system work are Txt2Give and Thankster.

Since you are reading this blog, you might already know that Txt2Give is a donation platform churches, nonprofits, and many other types of organizations can use to receive donations by text message.  You may not be familiar with Thankster, though, which is a service that allows you to, in their own words, “mail authentic, handwritten cards”.

Before this system will work, you’ll need to have a Txt2Give account and a Thankster account, and have a project created in Thankster with the card design you’d like to use.

Once you have this, and you’ve connected these two services together in Zapier, when a new donor gives to your nonprofit they’ll receive a nice, handwritten Thank You card in the mail.  Can you picture the smile on their face?

Endless Automation Possibilites

This is just one way that you can automate a part of your nonprofit. For more ideas, head over to Zapier and check out their list of integrations.

If you’d like to learn more about how Txt2Give can help your nonprofit, get in touch! We’d love to chat.