How to do a Thank You mailing

Table of Contents

The following How To describes Steps 11 and 12 of the Deposit/ Thank you mailing process. Please look over Steps 1-10 in the Batch Deposits wiki to make sure you have completed all of the prior steps. Do this now, or you will potentially make a mistake.

Policies

Every gift we receive must be thanked within four weeks of our receipt. This is an absolute deadline. Thank you mailings should be completed every 2 weeks. If you get to the 3 week mark, panic. If you get to the 4 week mark, the entire office should shut down and help get thank yous out. You can track the status of your thank yous in the DevComm Tasks sheet.

Non-Profit bulk rate requires there be at least 200 pieces. Occasionally we will meet the 200 pieces threshold by filling the thank you with "dummy" envelopes addressed to us. It all depends on whether this is cheaper than sending the thank you first class. With the current rates (as of 2017) of $.49/piece for 1st class and $.198/piece for bulk mail, it is cheaper to send first class if you are mailing 80 pieces or less).

Step 11: Generating Adelaide’s Letters & Envelopes:

*You will have to run the letters on the computer with Microsoft Word

Adelaide will personalize letters to members with specific flags, so we need to weed those letters out of the main batch.
Those 9 flags are:
Pull the letters in DonorPerfect:
  1. Go to Mailings -> Mail Merge
    2. Click “Show More Options” -> Ensure that Include “NO MAIL” Addresses is selected
  2. Go to Selection Filter -> Apply
  3. Go to the TY Mailing Folder
  4. Click the edit button on ‘AK TY Filter with Code’
    • Change the 1st line of the code DPGIFT.BATCH_NO = ‘XXXXX’ that is the recently closed batch number
    • Change the 3rd line of the code DPGIFT.TY_LETTER_NO = '01' to whichever TY letter code you are printing. So if you are printing TY Letter No 08 (New Member Thank You) the code should read DPGIFT.TY_LETTER_NO = '08'
    • Click ‘Done’
  5. Go to Selection Filter -> Apply
  6. Click the letter template you are working on. (For example, for TY Letter No 08, you’d click ‘TY New Member’
  7. A Word Document will automatically download with all of the letters merged
    • Edit the footer to reflect the TY Batch number you are working on
    • Do a quick scan to ensure everything looks okay before you save the letters
  8. Next, you have to print the envelopes for that TY Letter set.
  9. You should follow the exact same steps as above for the TY Letter you are working on, but when you arrive at the Instant Merge template selection stage, select TY Envelope.

Run Adelaide’s MJD Report:
  1. Hover over ‘Reports’ -> Easy Reports -> MJD Report Filter
  2. Include No Mail Names
  3. Go to “Set Selection filter” and select MJD Report. Make sure the batch number is updated.
  4. Send the files to Adelaide via email. Please note that the number of people on the major donor report should match the amount of people in her letters/ envelopes.

Step 12: General Thank You Mailing:

*Make sure you are on the computer with Word before you start

Pull the Letters in DonorPerfect
  1. Go to Mailings -> Mail Merge
    2. Click “Show More Options” -> Ensure that Include “NO MAIL” Addresses is selected
  2. Go to Selection Filter -> Apply
  3. Go to the TY Mailing Folder
  4. You will be using the compound filter ‘TY Batch minus AK with code’. This filter uses:
    • General TY Batch with Code
    • MJD Report Filter
  5. You’ll need to edit the codes for these two filters before you run them.
  6. To Edit General TY Batch with Code:
    • Go to Selection filter section and Click Apply
    • TY Mailing Filters Folder
    • Select the edit button for General Thank You Batch with Code
    • Edit code DPGIFT.BATCH_NO = 10006 the batch # should be either be 0 if you haven’t closed the batch, or if you’ve closed the batch, edit the batch # to reflect the batch you’re working on.
    • Edit code DPGIFT.TY_LETTER_NO = '01' to whichever TY letter code you are printing. So if you are printing TY Letter No 08 (New Member Thank You) the code should read DPGIFT.TY_LETTER_NO = '08'
  7. To Edit MJD Report Filter
    • Go to set selection filter
    • TY Mailing Filters Folder
    • Select the edit button for MJD Report Filter
    • Edit code DPGIFT.BATCH_NO = 10006 the batch # should be either be 0 if you haven’t closed the batch, or if you’ve closed the batch, edit the batch # to reflect the batch you’re working on.
  8. Now that you’ve edited the individual filters, you can run the compound filter. Go to Selection Filter -> TY Mailing Filter ->‘TY Batch minus AK with code’ and click select
    • Click ‘Instant Merge’
    • Click the letter template you are working on. (For example, for TY Letter No 08, you’d click ‘TY New Member’)
  9. A Word Document will automatically download with all of the letters merged
    • Edit the footer to reflect the TY Batch number you are working on
    • Do a quick scan to ensure everything looks okay before you print on letterhead
  10. Next, you have to print the envelopes for that TY Letter set.
    • You should follow the exact same steps as above for the TY Letter you are working on, but when you arrive at the Instant Merge template selection stage, select TY Envelope.
  11. Print all letters and envelopes. IMPORTANT: Make sure that the amount of letters you have matches up with what you pulled back in Step 9.
  12. Sign all the letters with Richard’s name.
  13. Fold and stuff with the letter and brochure. Stamp with a non-profit stamp.
  14. Prepare the mailing form and get a check for USPS from the Office Manager.
    • Form in drive as “Bulk Mailing form 2017” in \\membership\Mailings & Publications/mailing forms.

Current Thank you letters Codes

Thank you codes determine which thank you letter a donor will get.

01 - First gift/ renewal of the year (since renewal date)
08 - New Member
17 - Second or more gift of year (since renewal date)
19 - Memorial Giver
20 - Memorial gift family notification
API - API subscription thank you
DT- Do Not Thank
45 - Matching gift TY
16 - Gift Membership TY
*Note that there will also be a code for the most recent mailing. Ex. RN-3

Step 13: End of Year Thank You Mailing

(To take place as soon as a calendar year has ended) What: Send end of year tax receipts to all of the donors who have been designated to not be thanked until the end of the year.

When: At the start of the new year after all donations for the previous year have been recorded and processed.

Who: All members who have a recurring donation via the web, recurring donation via check, a Wells Fargo ACH Payment, or a 'do not thank' (DNT) flag. Thus, you will need to thank all individuals who give monthly via recurring credit card donation in Cybersource, recurring check donations, monthly Wells Fargo ACH payment contributors, and members who have specifically requested to not be thanked till the end of the year.

How: Use the report titled “End of Year” in the report center.

Recurring Donors report to run:

DPFLAGS.FLAG = 'MEM'
And DPGIFT.GIFT_DATE BETWEEN '01/01/20XX' AND '12/31/20XX'
And DPGIFT.SOLICIT_CODE IN ('RECXX','WEBRECXX')
And DP.ADDRESS IS NOT NULL

Do Not Thank report to run:

DPFLAGS.FLAG = 'DNT'
AND DPGIFT.GIFT_DATE BETWEEN '01/01/20XX' AND '12/31/20XX'
AND DPGIFT.SOLICIT_CODE <> 'WEBRECXX'
AND DPGIFT.SOLICIT_CODE <> 'RECXX'

Open these reports in separate google sheets. You will then remove any duplicates (sometimes these reports will list a member multiple times if they responded to different solicitation codes throughout the year but fall under the above reports stipulations).

To remove duplicates in google sheets: Add-ons -> Remove Duplicates -> Quick Dedupe (if you do not see this in the add-ons drop-down, select “Get add-ons” and search “Remove Duplicates in the G Suite Marketplace and install).

Be on the lookout for anyone who may have been given the DEC or RMV flag throughout the year. You may need to use ctrl-F and find these people (select the “Match case” option and google sheets should highlight anyone with the RMV or DEC flags).

THIS WILL PULL EVERYONE WHO HAS A RECURRING DONATION AND THE DNT FLAG. YOU THEN NEED TO FILTER OUT ADELAIDE’S MJD FOLKS SHE WILL BE WRITING LETTERS TO.

Flags that Adelaide will be thanking include BRD, INT, FDN, FRI, MJD, STF, TRU, VOL, WIL

The easiest way to sort these out is filter the column with each member’s individual flags, and remove anyone with any of the 9 flags above. These individuals will encompass Adelaide’s portion of the end of year mailing.

Finally, run a mail-merge in Microsoft Word (you can’t pull the letters directly from DonorPerfect because of the duplicate issue), and insert the correct fields (Address, salutation, ytd gift total) into the TY letter being used. Voila.


Get ahold of RK to find out what TY letter he wants to use for this mailing!
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