Let me correct that.
Don’t re-use them unless they were smashing successes.
But if they weren’t as great as you’d hoped, start taking notes.
I talk with a lot of nonprofits each week. By Friday I know the “hot topic” among my auction chairs.
Last week, it was donations. My winter auctions are cranking up their procurement teams. I heard several questions about auction donation letters.
If this is also on your mind, you’ll love these two oldies-but-goodies videos. One talks about the auction request letter; the other, your thank-you letter.
Three re-writes of benefit auction donation letters
How to thank your benefit auction donors
I’d love to hear about what letter revisions have worked for your charity auction.
Leave a comment below sharing a success you had with a tweak made to a donor letter.
Sheri, first off I want to thank you for personally commenting on the auction program samples I ordered from you. This really shows you are looking at EVERY order. My thank you letters to my donors goes a little further. Because I take the time and write a clever description for EVERY item donated, not just the pricy ones. When I send out my post auction thank you’s; I have always added exactly what you described – selling price if over value and total amount raised if not sold for value. I ALSO send the donors of our larger items an actual auction program marking the page where I promoted their donation. Since our catalog is fairly unique with the detailed and clever item descriptions, color and quality, this has seemed to be very helpful the following year when beginning my procurring process.
Thanks for all you do. You are helping so many more people than you can even imagine.
Janice
Thanks for taking the time to write, Janice. Not only did I blush at the compliment (thank you for that), but I love that you shared an idea that offers an extra attention to detail with your post-auction thank yous. What a nice touch! Those with exceptionally heavy or large catalogs might find sending them to be unwieldy, but many nonprofits could easily follow your lead and slip a program/catalog into the envelope.
I’m sure your donors appreciate that, especially if they are comparing that experience to other events to which they might have donated.
Thanks again for stopping by the blog … and enjoy those catalogs!