Your organization probably has a strategy for asking donors to give. But do you have an equally thoughtful strategy for making them feel appreciated?
A necessary focus for nonprofit advancement teams is the ask. They spend a lot of time and energy cultivating relationships, developing compelling proposals, and determining when and how to make the ask. They will often create committees to strategize how to approach solicitations for each major donor, thinking through who should make the ask, what experience to create, and how to inspire a meaningful commitment.
But what happens after the gift is secured?
It goes without saying that donors will receive a thank-you letter, and donors at higher levels will receive a gift, a personal phone call, or an invitation to a donor appreciation event. But is your organization looking at the entire thanking experience? Is the gratitude you are expressing being truly felt?
That distinction could make a meaningful difference in your fundraising success, both now and in the future.
Gratitude Is More Than Good Manners. It’s Good Fundraising.
The nonprofit sector has a donor retention problem.
Data from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) shows 5% growth in total charitable dollars raised in 2025 compared to 2024, marking the strongest growth the sector has seen in five years. At the same time, the number of donors declined by 3.6%, continuing a downward trend that began in 2021. So, while the sector is experiencing an increase in giving, it is coming from narrower base.
The growth is also primarily coming from larger gifts, particularly at the Major and Transformational giving levels, where both the number of gifts and the total dollars increased. This pattern points to a growing reliance on fewer, larger gifts. If broader participation continues to shrink, long-term sustainability becomes a critical issue.
Nonprofits are working hard to steward major donors and secure large gifts, but are they doing enough to nurture the relationships they’ve already established, especially among smaller and mid-sized donors? While the data doesn’t suggest inadequate gratitude is causing a loss of donors, it is undeniable that given the current climate, donor relationships, appreciation, and retention are becoming increasingly important.
There has been some observational research that suggests personal expressions of gratitude increase the likelihood of giving again. An analysis by Bloomerang examined nearly 1.9 million donors across 3,729 nonprofits to determine giving behaviors among donors who received personal phone calls to thank them for their gifts. Among first-time donors, those who received no phone call within 90 days of their gift made another gift at a rate of approximately 33%. That figure rose to 41% for donors who received one call and 58% for those who received multiple calls.
While this correlation does not prove that calls alone caused higher retention, it does reinforce what we already know about human behavior: people value personal connection, continued engagement, and feeling appreciated.
Gratitude isn’t simply a courtesy that follows a transaction. It’s an opportunity to deepen trust, reinforce shared purpose, and remind donors that their generosity matters.
And like any other important part of your fundraising strategy, it deserves thoughtful evaluation.
Introducing the Gratitude Audit
If we apply the same intentionality to evaluating our gratitude initiatives that we do to tracking dollars raised, donor acquisition, and campaign progress, expressing thanks becomes more than a box to check.
A Gratitude Audit is a structured examination of how your organization expresses appreciation throughout the donor experience. It looks beyond the existence of stewardship activities to consider their quality, consistency, and effectiveness.
Here are six questions to guide your evaluation.
1. Where Does Gratitude Show Up?
Start by mapping the donor journey, from the first interaction through years of ongoing support, and note where your organization expresses thanks. Logical places would be immediately after a gift, at an annual recognition event, in an impact report, and during one-on-one conversations with your frontline fundraisers.
Where are the gaps? Do donors feel your organization’s gratitude outside the standard solicitation cycle? Do you express appreciation for contributions that aren’t financial, like time, ideas, advocacy, or engagement? Gratitude should be woven throughout the relationship, not reserved for the moments immediately following a gift.
The audit question: If you removed every solicitation from your donor communications, how much meaningful engagement would remain?
2. How Quickly Are Donors Thanked?
When I had my bat mitzvah and was showered with gifts from friends and family, my parents made me finish every thank you note and put it in the mail within one week of receiving the present. Since the majority of guests brought gifts to the party instead of sending them ahead of time, this caused some pretty painful hand cramping in the week following the event. But I learned this lesson: timing matters.
For a donor, a thank-you delivered while the excitement of making a gift is still fresh feels different from one that arrives weeks later. Consider establishing a standard of acknowledging every gift within 48 hours, with additional personal outreach based on the donor relationship.
The audit question: How much time passes between a donor’s act of generosity and their first meaningful experience of appreciation?
3. Who Is Saying Thank You?
Not all thank-yous are equal, and not all thankers carry the same weight.
Instead of defaulting to an automated process, consider what would create a connection between generosity and the people or possibilities it helps support. A call from a student whose scholarship they helped fund, a handwritten note from a researcher whose work they supported, or a phone call from a board member with a shared passion all communicate thoughtfulness and care. Be intentional about who delivers gratitude and why.
The audit question: Are the people expressing gratitude the ones best positioned to make it meaningful?
4. Does the Gratitude Feel Personal?
Going back to my bat mitzvah example, I wrote the same thank you note to every person who gave me money as a gift.
Dear __,
Thank you for your generous check. I can’t wait to get to the mall! Thank you for celebrating my special day with me.
While there’s nothing inherently wrong with these words, they are generic and lack feeling. They could come from almost any thirteen-year-old, addressed to almost any bat mitzvah guest.
Meaningful gratitude communicates something more specific: We see you. We understand what matters to you. And we recognize the role you’re playing in making something important possible.
Personalization doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. Simply acknowledging a donor’s long-standing commitment, referencing a particular interest, or recognizing the personal motivation behind their giving goes a long way.
The audit question: Are your thank-you communications specific, sincere, and meaningful?
5. Are You Demonstrating Impact—or Just Expressing Appreciation?
Donors want to know their contributions are making a difference, so in addition to acknowledging generosity, it is important to demonstrate why that generosity matters. Gratitude becomes more powerful when it’s connected to tangible outcomes, authentic stories, and evidence of progress.
To properly demonstrate impact, you’ll want to do more than just share impressive numbers. Helping donors understand the connection between their investment and the change they care about creating is the key.
That might mean showing how a scholarship changed a student’s trajectory, how a research investment advanced a discovery, or how a community program created opportunities that didn’t previously exist. The most compelling gratitude doesn’t simply celebrate the gift. It demonstrates that the trust behind it was well placed.
The audit question: Do your donors know what their generosity is making possible, and can they see themselves as partners in that impact?
6. Does Your Gratitude Reflect the Relationship?
A donor making their first $50 gift and a donor completing a seven-figure campaign commitment have different relationships with your organization, and their stewardship experiences should reflect those differences. However, meaningful gratitude is equally important for both.
Your first-time donors become your next mid-sized donors, and your mid-sized donors become your next major donors. And the size of a gift is only one measure of the significance of the relationship. A monthly donor may be demonstrating extraordinary loyalty through modest but consistent contributions. A longtime volunteer may have contributed hundreds of hours alongside their financial support.
Every donor should feel valued in a way that’s appropriate and authentic to their relationship with your organization.
The audit question: Are you recognizing the depth and meaning of donor relationships, or simply sorting appreciation by gift amount?
Turning Gratitude Into a Strategic Advantage
Once you’ve completed your audit, look for patterns.
Perhaps your organization excels at recognizing major gifts but has no meaningful follow-up process for first-time donors. Maybe your acknowledgment letters are prompt but impersonal. Or you could be producing excellent impact reports that never explicitly connect the results to the generosity that made them possible.
You don’t need to overhaul your entire stewardship program overnight. Start by identifying three opportunities to improve the donor experience. Assign ownership, establish expectations, and create a plan to measure progress.
Consider tracking not only whether acknowledgments are sent, but how quickly, through which channels, and to which donor segments. Pair those operational measures with donor feedback, engagement, and retention trends.
And remember that gratitude isn’t solely the responsibility of the advancement team.
When gratitude becomes part of an organization’s culture, it influences how leaders speak about donors, how program teams share stories, how communications teams demonstrate impact, and how everyone recognizes the people who make the mission possible.
A Final Question Worth Asking
There’s one more question that may be the most important one to ask:
If you were a donor to your own organization, would you feel genuinely appreciated?
Would you feel that the organization understood why you gave? That your participation mattered? That you were part of something meaningful?
At Parisleaf, we believe gratitude is more than a response to generosity. It’s a mindset that shapes how we approach relationships, partnerships, and the work of helping nonprofits create positive impact.
Because philanthropy is ultimately about people choosing to invest in a better future.
And that’s something worth being grateful for.
