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3 Ways to Say “Thank You for Your Gift” More Personally

Picture of Gina Calvert Gina Calvert : April 7, 2022

Leadership Back Office

3 Ways to Say “Thank You for Your Gift” More Personally

What does it mean to do something personally? In our daily lives, it could mean:

Doing it yourself (i.e. I’ll hand-deliver this to John myself.)
Addressing the recipient of your action by name (i.e. Mary, I want you to have this.)
Ensuring that your action is relevant them (i.e. Tom, I know you love fishing, so I thought you might enjoy this documentary.)
Speaking from the heart (i.e. Susie, this is so thoughtful. I can’t tell you what this means to me!)

How does this apply to your givers? As it turns out, this topic is so important it’s actually one of our 11 Commandments of Online Giving:

ONLINE GIVING COMMANDMENT #9

Thank Your Givers Personally

These 3 foundational aspects of gift acknowledgment are key to effective personalization:

MAKE SURE THE THANK YOU
COMES FROM YOU

Most giving systems send thank you emails from their own DO-NOT-REPLY email address instead of from the church.

Receiving a thank you from a third-party vendor can make givers fear that they have fallen for a scam or feel concerned about the security of their gift. At the very least, it doesn’t feel very personal.

SOLUTION: Vision2 gives the church the last word when it comes to your giving experience. You get to customize the emails and they come from your address. Our branding is nowhere to be seen.

ADDRESS GIVERS NOT JUST BY NAME, BUT BY GIVING BEHAVIOR

Personalization has become so common that consumers aren’t necessarily impressed when automated emails they receive contain their name.

Especially if that where familiarity ends. If the rest of the email is a boilerplate thank you, with no mention of the giver’s generosity to a specific fund, first time gift, long time loyalty, or other church information they might be interested in, it doesn’t feel personal.

Just imagine if Netflix sent everyone the same email. Even if was addressed to you personally, that wouldn’t feel very personal. Instead, you get content tailored to your behavior: “Season 2 of a show you watched is now available” or “You watched that so you might enjoy this similar show.” Netflix delivers genuinely personal content that is (usually) relevant to you.

SOLUTION: Vision2 Analytics allows you to go beyond just using givers’ names in gift acknowledgments. You can easily automate actions like these:

Drop a quick video from the pastor into a first time givers welcome email, along with additional newcomer information
Provide updates about a mission trip in the thank you email of someone who just donated to that mission trip
Include upcoming events in acknowledgments to irregular givers, to engage them in participation

CONNECT GIVERS MORE DEEPLY TO THE CHURCH

Giving is a very personal act of worship. How can we make sure online giving feels that way? One way is to ensure givers feel appreciated, known, and more deeply connected to their church through their giving experience.

The customary drop-down menu of fund names, which may have no personal meaning and fails to convey the impact of their gifts, cannot create that connection. Especially for new givers.

SOLUTION: In addition to gift acknowledgments that come from the church and can be deeply personalized through automated features within Vision2, our gift experience is like no other. It easily provides the church a way to move beyond ho-hum to engaging with Vision2’s media-rich giving experience.

Take a look at one of our clients’ giving pages here .

Central-Church-Give-Stories-in-device By scrolling through dynamic giving options, your givers get an at-a-glance look at how active the church is in the community and world. They can leverage an informative and inspiring digital experience to put their money where their passions lie.