The focus of my work at Rosso Writing is helping nonprofits tell their stories so the people and communities they serve can thrive. One of the ways my clients hope to move audiences with their stories is by encouraging them to give. Fundraising is what keeps nonprofit executive directors up at night, and many of my clients want to know how whatever I’m writing is going to help them pull in donations. I get it. And I was recently reminded of how valuable it is to thank people warmly and genuinely for their gifts.

As an individual and part of a family that believes strongly in helping others and sharing what we have, we make plenty of our own charitable donations. Some of these donations are to my clients, because I am so inspired by learning about their successes in the course of our work together that I want to help. Other contributions are to nonprofits, both local and national, whose missions we are strongly committed to and want to see grow. And sometimes our giving is part of our holiday celebrations and how we honor people we love.

This past December, for Christmas and Hanukkah, I sat down with my five-year-old daughter at the computer to look at the Greater Washington Catalogue for Philanthropy website. I’ve served as a reviewer for the Catalogue for several years, ever since I worked for the Meyer Foundation and Meyer funding helped launch the local edition of the Catalogue. The premise of the Catalogue is that small to medium-sized nonprofits from around our region apply to be featured in beautiful book that comes out every November for people to use in end-of-year their charitable giving. The featured organizations are designated the best and brightest–nonprofits that are doing stellar work and that have been thoroughly vetted so you know your contribution will be put to good use. What I wanted to do with my daughter was to find organizations that she thought would be meaningful to our family members so we could give donations to the charities in honor of our relatives. She made a list of each person we wanted to give to, and one at a time we brainstormed about what that person liked. We discussed affinities for bugs, outdoor adventures, healthy cooking, dancing, birds, and nursing, among other topics. So I scrolled through the lists of organizations by category and found possible matches, such as a project where inner-city kids learn to plant and harvest and cook their own nutritious food. We happily explored possibilities until we had found 12 great nonprofits to make donations to in honor of our family members. I printed out information about each organization, along with my daughter’s inspiration for connecting the nonprofit with the recipient, and she decorated each paper. We gave them out on Christmas morning or mailed them to far-away family members, and they were a hit.

A few weeks later, we began to receive thank you notes from the organizations. I had talked to the Catalogue’s President and Editor Barbara Harman about our project, so she let the charities know that these donations were a little bit different because they came from the heart of a kindergartener. So I was especially moved when I received messages from the nonprofit EDs expressly requesting that I share their thanks with my daughter. Some were addressed to her. I loved the postcards we received as thanks from a couple organizations, with beautiful pictures of their work in action and handwritten notes on the back. And one organization’s leader invited us to let him know when we might come out to the site to take a tour of the wetlands and woods they are protecting. (I’m thinking Spring). Thank you notes mean a lot to me. I am absolutely more inclined to stay involved and consider donating again to the organizations that sent personalized notes that talked about what they’re doing with our gift. I know these people are busy and I know our donations were not huge, but that acknowledgment of our gift and why it matters makes a difference to me. A thank you doesn’t have to be long and it doesn’t have to be fancy. But it does need to be prompt and it does need to be real. Just a short thank you can brilliantly tell the story of what an organization does and what it values, including its contributors.