July 15, 2020 | Categories Donor Management, DonorPerfect Fundraising Software, DonorPerfect Update, Featured

Release Announcement: Instantly Thank Donors From The Gift Screen

In DonorPerfect’s latest release, going live this weekend, a new Thank a Donor feature will be added on the Gift page toolbar letting you instantly thank your donors for their support. While you could always thank donors using DonorPerfect, this new feature lets you send an email or create a thank you letter directly from the donor’s gift record.

How Quickly Should You Thank a Donor?

You’ve worked hard to find new donors and solicit them to donate. One of the best ways to retain your donors and get them to give even more is to thank them quickly, preferably within 48 hours of receiving their gift. Not only does this increase your chances of them being retained but it could also boost the donation amount of their next gift. Our data shows that donors who are thanked donate 43% more on average for their next gift.

How DonorPerfect Helps You Shorten the Thank You Cycle

In this month’s release of DonorPerfect, we’re shortening the thank you cycle with a new Thank Donor button and functionality for the Gift screen. From this new menu item, you can select whether you want to send your supporter an email or letter to thank them immediately after entering their gift.

NOTE: Only US DonorPerfect users with “Edit a Gift” permissions will see Send an Email listed under the Thank Donor menu. Canadian and International users can expect to see this in a future release.

Sending an Email to Thank Donors

When adding or editing a donor gift, hover over Thank Donor on the action bar at the top of the screen. Click Send an Email and a new window will appear.

Here, you can choose which email template to use, select or enter a new email address, and personalize your subject line. By personalizing the subject of your emails, you will connect with your supporters and welcome them to your mission. Once sent, this will update your donor’s receipt fields, marking the gift as processed. It will also create a contact record if you have this set in parameters. DonorPerfect emails you when individual email receipts fail to send.

For full instructions on how to use this great new feature, visit Sending an Email Acknowledgement From the Gift Record in the Knowledgebase in DP Community.

PRO TIP:
Thanking your donors is not the end of your relationship with them. It’s just the beginning if you want to retain them. Check out this recent blog post for more creative ideas on how to take your donor relationships to the next level.

Tracking Email Receipt Status

Available in the Receipts screen for all clients, the new Email Receipt History report will help you to monitor email receipts that have been sent successfully and those that have failed. This report will show the status of receipt emails sent so that you can review the history for all users at any time. US clients will also see single gift email receipts sent from the gift record.

To learn how the Email Receipt History report helps you track and manage both individual and batched email receipts, check out this article in DP Community.

Send a Letter – Where is Instant Merge?

Instant Merge on the gift record has been moved under Thank Donor on the action toolbar and renamed to Send a Letter. It still functions the same way and has the same permissions. At this time, Send a Letter does not create a contact record, but if you think that it should, check out this idea from our client, Trent B. at the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits, and vote to show your support. Thanks Trent!

If you have an idea or way to improve how DonorPerfect can help you accomplish your fundraising goals, like the idea that inspired this month’s release, let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

Release Notes

Improvements to shorten the thank you cycle are not the only changes this month in DonorPerfect. We also updated the look and feel of the parameters screen. (It’s organized alphabetically now!) Read about all of the enhancements in the DonorPerfect 2020.07 Release Notes in the Knowledgebase in DP Community.