I'm looking for some info on how others handle the task of personalizing acknowledgement letters. Currently, we use a scanned signature for most correspondence and plug in addressee, salutation and gift amounts from RE. How do other foundations make letters personal while still managing to get other work done? Do you increase the level of personalization for higher levels of giving? If so, what are the giving levels at which a letter requires a handwritten note or some other effort to show that it's personalized? Any and all feedback would be much appreciated! Allison Anderson Administrative Assistant Rochester Area Foundation [Email Removed]

We have our COO hand sign acknowledgement letters for all donations over $500. If it is from a person or group that I have a personal relationship with, I hand sign them myself for any amount. Lisa Davis Johnson Community Outreach/Fund Development Manager The HSC Pediatric Center (Formerly The Hospital for Sick Children) 1731 Bunker Hill Road, NE Washington, DC 20017 Phone: (202) 635-6126 Fax: (202) 635-5780 E-mail: [Email Removed]

Thanks for your feedback, Lisa. What type of signature is used for gifts under $500?

We use a scanned signature for all of the other letters.

I think volume is a deciding factor as well. Here the President of the University signs all gifts under $500 and the Director of Development signs gifts over (as they are "her babies". Our total gifts for the year are around 3000 out of 12000 potential donors so it is manageable.

All acknowledgement letters are signed. Gifts under $1,000 are signed by our Sr. VP and our President/CEO signs letters over this amount (if he is in the office). If another development director has a relationship, they will add a handwritten note on the signed letter. Monica Solomon Director, Development Operations and Research John G. Shedd Aquarium [Email Removed] (312) 692-3282

Our administrator (CEO) signs all acknowledgement letters personally, unless it's a pledge payment, whereupon our Director of Development signs those. Quite often she will put a personal written note of thanks in for their ongoing support, as well. We see just under 13,500 gifts per year, with 1 accountant entering gifts, while 1 administrative assistant generates thank yous right out of Raisers Edge. Our response time is also targetting the 2 day turnaround, which we usually can manage.

Our Director of Donor Services (me!) signs all acknowledgement letters. Then, once a month, we generate a report of all "large gifts" which for us is $25,000 or more. The President then calls or writes a personal note to the donor thanking them for their recent gift. I have not used a scanned signature for any acknowledgements, but in light of the HR4 changes regarding gifts to donor advised funds we may explore it for gifts under $250. We only do acknowledgement letters once a week. I hope that helps! Anne Monell, Community Foundation of Louisville

We use a scanned signature for anything under $500. All others are hand signed by the CEO. We do approx. 25,000 donations a year.

We generate approx 22,000 donor acknowledgement letters per year. Our Executive Director signed them all personally until a couple of months ago. Now we're using a scanned signature with a scanned handwritten greeting (thanks! or something like that). All the letters are forwarded to the Executive Director with any notes that were included with the donation and he adds a personal notes to some of the letters based on donation size or relationship. Laurie Soares Business Manager Good News Rescue Mission Redding, CA

Would anyone mind if I ask why type of printer they are using? We have a HP color printer that we use for a blue color signature. Unfortunately, the printer still depletes the other colors and is not very cost-effective since we do roughly 7k letters a month. We are returning it for a B&W printer. Because we do mainly duplex thank you letters, it also wore down the duplexer. Does anyone else use color signatures? Does it look like it is better than B&W signatures? Any recommendations would be welcomed. Thanks.

Hello, As a campus ministry center that fuctions as a church, we have one individual who enters all Sunday collection gift information. At this stage in the game, we've only sent an annual acknowledgment of those gifts. A separate individual adds all other gifts and generates a thank you note using standard messages based on appeal, if the gift amount of under $1,000 (a large gift for us). All letters are signed by our Director and if he knows them, he usually adds a margin note. Our development director's goal is to call each person who donates to an appeal. It is her New Year's resolution and personally, I'm not sure if that is feasible in the long term. For all gifts over $1,000, our director writes a personal note and our gift officer sends a separate tax acknowledgment. If the gift is the result of any personal contact, (i.e. home or office visit), the Development Director writes an additional handwritten note. We try to have a five-day turn around since our gift officer also does virtually everything else on site.

All of our acknowledgement letters are hand-signed, but we have a relatively low number of gifts coming in. My big frustration is getting them out the door in a timely manner. I can usually get them entered into the system and letters produced within 24 hours, but then I have to wait for the next level up to personalize the typed letters before they can be printed off and have them signed by the V.P. or president. They do a great job with it, but unfortunately since they are all swamped, it can really slow things down. Ideally, I would like to have the V.P. or president send out a quick hand written thank you the moment we get in any gifts of $5,000 or above and follow that up with a tax receipt through the normal process. Teresa Carstensen Data/Informations Systems Coordinator Columbus College of Art & Design

We didn't like the look of scanned signatures so we purchased a signature machine. We are a large (2 foundations)and have a lot of gifts. The blue ink still looks a bit phoney but it is much closer to an original signature. Donna Munson MultiCare Health System Tacoma, WA (253) 403-1521