Is your organization sheepishly still sending out mail merge paper acknowledgments and direct mail campaign letters via snail-mail despite the cost, waste and general signal it sends to your donors that you might still be operating in the land of dinosaurs? You’re not alone. While many nonprofits have transitioned to email acknowledgments and campaigns there are reasons paper persists.

One is that many donors feel paper offers a personal touch and that can make the difference from a stewardship perspective. The stamp and handwritten signature (even if it was electronically generated) offer a sense that you went the extra mile and didn’t just send out an automated form email. Another is that many donors still resist moving away from paper files and want that acknowledgment letter right there ready to go when tax season comes around. A third reason is that email has become a clogged major artery. A vital amount of information flows through it, but if its a generic form response many donors don’t organize their email in such a way that it will end up staying top of mind.

We all know that this is fast changing and that electronic communication has become the most successful form of outreach and fundraising for nonprofits bar none. So we thought it might be helpful to offer a few tips on how to move your constituents into the current era while maintaining the benefits of paper days gone by.

  • Send both email and paper correspondence for a period of time to transition your constituents into the idea of electronic communication becoming primary; once they get used to it they will likely prefer it.
  • Use mail merge within email templates to make your email solicitations and acknowledgments look both professional and branded to your nonprofit; not just a generic form email response. If your CRM doesn’t offer this functionality, you need a new CRM.
  • Always include an electronic signature and not just your signature block in any email marketing piece or acknowledgment.
  • Take it way back and send personalized handwritten thank you notes to major donors or sponsors – these should be on top of your usual acknowledgment process and will stand out once paper isn’t your organization’s primary form of communication.

Using Mail Merge and Email Templates Together

Nonprofit Vertical CRM makes this process easy by first allowing you to very efficiently draft a mail merge document. This of course in it of itself is a pioneering feat in the land of CRMs – seriously, you won’t believe how simple they have made the process which is why I have attached the video below. Once your mail merge document is built you have the option to embed that document, inline or as an attachment into an email bringing mail merge into the current era.

So snail mail and email to your donors for a period of time, (if only because you can so easily) and start transitioning them into the comfort of the brave new electronic world, while still having one foot in the dark ages when paper reigned supreme.

For more information on Nonprofit Vertical CRM please click here.