Acknowledgment Letters Are Not Stewardship Strategy
We’re heading into one of the busiest times of the year for fundraising teams.
Giving Tuesday. Year-end appeals. Holiday communications. Stewardship pieces. Impact reports. Events. Email campaigns.
And in August, many organizations are beginning to map out what all of that will look like. (If you’re not, here is your reminder to get started.)
That’s a good thing. The earlier you collect stories, gather photos, identify audiences, build your calendar, and decide what you’re going to say, the less likely you are to spend November scrambling to put something together.
But as you build that calendar, there’s one part of the donor lifecycle that deserves more attention:
What happens after the acknowledgment letter.
It’s important. It’s necessary. And doing nothing after it, is 100% not a donor stewardship strategy.
Receiving a thank-you letter is also something most donors expect. I mean, after all, it’s our responsibility as fundraisers! But making a donor excited about your mission requires more than just meeting their expectations.
According to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP), overall donor retention was just 43.3% in 2025, while about only 1 in 5 donors stay onboard after their first gift.
Only 1 in 5 First-Time Donors Give Again
Think about someone who just made their first gift.
You know how much they gave, when they gave, and which campaign motivated it. What you don't know is why.
What connected them to your mission? Why now? Do they actually understand what your organization does day to day?
A donor who gives because a friend forwarded an email isn't the same as one whose mission mirrors something personal in their own life. Same check, same amount, same day, but they need very different things from you afterward.
An acknowledgment letter can't tell you which one you're dealing with. A phone call can, because it's the only format that lets you actually ask.
A letter thanks someone for what they already did. A call is where you find out what made them do it, and that answer tells you what comes next: a program tour, an introduction, or simply another thank you before you ever ask again.
We've seen this firsthand. One client's donor, during her thank you call, mentioned a family member had gone through the organization's programs decades earlier. She'd known about the organization her whole life. She just hadn't recognized it under its current name after a rebrand. That single call surfaced a dormant relationship no letter would have uncovered.
If your organization has changed its name, moved, or rebranded, some of your community may not recognize you anymore, even people with real history there.
That is one story. Here is what it looks like at scale.
Bloomerang analyzed nearly 1.92 million donors across 3,729 nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and Canada. Among the first-time donors they studied, donors who did not receive a phone call within 90 days were retained at about 33%. Those receiving one call had a 41.24% retention rate, while those getting more than one call (think CEO + board member) had a 58.21% retention rate.
It can be as simple as:
"Thank you for supporting us. I'd love to know what motivated you to give."
I've seen where that question leads more times than I can count, and it rarely happens by accident.
Every Plan Needs an Owner
One thing we do at Hairpin is lay out donor communications across a year-long calendar.
How many communications are going out in August? What happens in September? There's an event in October. How does that fit into the donor journey? Who receives the year-end appeal? Who receives a stewardship piece instead?
And just as importantly:
What happens between those solicitations?
What you decide to do with what you learn from a donor is where the calendar comes in.
A first-time donor who tells you why they gave doesn't need the same next step as one who doesn't. Some need an invitation. Some need an introduction to the program they care about. Some just need to hear from you again before you ever ask for anything else. None of that happens by accident, and none of it happens without someone deciding it should.
Maybe your development team decides:
That every first-time donor above a certain threshold receives a personal phone call.
That the goal is to personally connect with 5 (or 50) donors before Giving Tuesday.
That certain donors receive an invitation to tour a program.
That board members each receive a short list of donors to thank.
The exact strategy will look different for every organization. What matters is deciding what you want donor engagement to look like before everyone gets busy, and just as importantly, deciding who owns it.
Without a plan and an owner, the donors you meant to call personally can quietly become the ones who only ever get a mail merge.
Your Donors Notice More Than You Think
Planning ahead also gives you something else that is incredibly valuable: perspective.
When you see your entire fundraising calendar, you can see how your organization might be perceived from the donor’s side.
How often are you asking for money? How often are you showing impact? How often are you just saying thank you?
Recently, my family member received a stewardship piece from an organization that they support and which happens to be my client. There was no donation envelope, no QR code, and no ask hidden at the bottom.
Their text immediately caught my attention:
“It’s rare to see a piece that’s strictly a thank-you piece. Not one paragraph in here asking for money. I love it.”
That is a positive donor experience.
Donors notice when every communication leads to an ask. They notice when you remember them only during giving campaigns.
But they also notice when an organization makes the effort to call, listen, invite them in, show them their impact, and genuinely build a relationship.
Start Now
We're still in August. That means there's still time to decide, deliberately, what you want your donor experience to look like before year-end fundraising takes over every calendar on your team.
You don't need a new plan to start. You already have one, built section by section above. Here's how to put it to work:
Pick a threshold. Decide which first-time donors get a personal call, not just a letter.
Assign the owner. Attach a name to that decision now, before the busy season quietly erases it.
Ask the question. "What motivated you to give?" Then actually listen for the answer.
Build the calendar around what you learn. Let the answers you collect decide who gets an invitation, an introduction, or simply another thank you.
A letter can thank someone. Only a conversation can actually get to know them.
Thank you for being here,
Austin Pierce
Founder & Principal Consultant
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