Acknowledgment Process

Gifts are acknowledged to the donor by creating a letter of thanks, with or without a formal receipt. The letter can be printed or sent as an email.

The contents of an acknowledgment letter will vary, depending on the motivation for the gift, the amount or value, attributes of the donor, legal requirements, and other factors. In order to satisfy these different needs, you create different letter templates and then determine the appropriate letter for each circumstance.

Each letter template contains the acknowledgment wording in combination with a set of "merge fields" or pieces of information about the donor and gift that may vary for each gift. For example, you use merge fields to insert the donor name, address and salutation, the date and amount of the gift, the receipt number, if any, and additional information about the gift you may wish to reference in the letter. You can create any number of these letter templates.

Letters can be created (printed or sent by email) one at a time as you enter gifts, in a batch if you are using the Batch Manager, from the Gift Manager where you can select a group of gifts to acknowledge at the same time, or from the New Mailing screen where you can select the gifts to include using a date filter.

The complete acknowledgment process consists of the following steps:

1. Determine what letter templates you need for each circumstance. For example, you may have one type of letter for small gifts in response to the annual mailing, another letter, perhaps signed by the board chair, for gifts from board members, and a third template for larger gifts from the public.
2. Decide which templates will be for letters only and which might be sent also as an email. You will need separate templates for letters and email.
3. Add each letter template, including the merge fields.
4. Save the templates using names that will be easy to understand. These names appear in the list of available templates as you enter or update gifts.
   1. As you add each gift, select the appropriate letter template.
   2. If you do not wish to select the template as you add the gifts, you can add a letter template to the gifts later, using the Update Selected button on the Gifts Tab of the Gift Manager.
   3. You can also select the template to use for a group of gifts if you run acknowledgment letters simply based on date, using the New Mailing screen.

To acknowledge gifts as they are entered, do the following:

1. As you are entering a gift, click on the Save and Send Letter button after you have finished adding the gift.
2. Follow the steps in the New Mailing screen to create the acknowledgment.
3. Once the letter has been printed or email sent, click on OK when you are asked if you want to mark the gifts as acknowledged on Step 5 on the New Mailing screen.
   1. The gift included in the mailing is checked as acknowledged and the mailing date is filled in as the Acknowledged date for the gift.

To acknowledge gifts in a Batch, do the following:

1. Use the Batch Manager tab of the Gift Manager to set your current batch code.
2. Enter your gifts into the batch.
3. After all the gifts have been entered, go to the Batch Manager tab of the Gift Manager.
4. Select the batch from the list of batches.
5. Click on the Acknowledge button to create letters and emails for all of the gifts in the batch. This opens the New Mailing screen.
6. At Step 1, select the letter template to be used for gifts that may not have a template selected. This template is only used if the letter template attached to a gift is blank.
7. At Step 2, select the Mailing tag for addresses, alternate salutations and alternate names if you are using this feature. You can also create a follow up activity for each gift.
8. At Step 3, if some of the gifts in the batch have already been acknowledged, you can decide if you wish to run those letters again.
   1. Click on Apply Filter and choose between "Include only unacknowledged gifts" and "Include all gifts."
9. At Step 5, select the output to create the letters and emails.
10. Once the letters have been printed or emails sent, click on OK when you are asked if you want to mark the gifts as acknowledged on Step 5 on the New Mailing screen.
    1. The gifts included in the mailing are checked as acknowledged and the mailing date is filled in as the Acknowledged date for the gifts.

To acknowledge gifts as a group from the Gifts Manager, do the following:

1. Open the Gifts tab of the Gifts Manager.
2. Use the Filters or other technique to find and select the gifts to be acknowledged by letter.
3. Click on the Acknowledge button to create the letters. This opens the New Mailing screen.
4. At Step 1, select the letter template to be used for gifts that may not have a template selected. This template is only used if the letter template attached to a gift is blank.
5. At Step 2, select the Mailing tag for addresses, alternate salutations and alternate names if you are using this feature. You can also create a follow up activity for each gift.
6. At Step 3, if some of the gifts in the group have already been acknowledged, you can decide if you wish to run those letters again.
   1. Click on Apply Filter and choose between "Include only unacknowledged gifts" and "Include all gifts."
7. At Step 5, select the output to create the letters and emails.
8. Once the letters have been printed or emails sent, click on OK when you are asked if you want to mark the gifts as acknowledged on Step 5 on the New Mailing screen.
   1. The gifts included in the mailing are checked as acknowledged and the mailing date is filled in as the Acknowledged date for the gifts.

You can also acknowledge gifts as a group directly from the New Mailing screen without using the Gifts Manager:

1. Open the New Mailing screen.
2. At Step 1, select the letter template from the Acknowledgment templates to be used for gifts that may not have a template selected. This template is only used if the letter template attached to a gift is blank.
3. At Step 2, select the Mailing tag for addresses, alternate salutations and alternate names if you are using this feature. You can also create a follow up activity for each gift.
4. At Step 3, use the filters to select the gifts to be acknowledged:
   1. Select Gift Entry or Gift Date and fill in a date range for the gifts to be acknowledged.
   2. If some of the gifts in the group have already been acknowledged, you can decide if you wish to run those letters again.
   3. Choose between "Include only unacknowledged gifts" and "Include all gifts."
5. At Step 5, select the output to create the letters and emails.
6. Once the letters have been printed or emails sent, click on OK when you are asked if you want to mark the gifts as acknowledged on Step 5 on the New Mailing screen. 
   The gifts included in the mailing are checked as acknowledged and the mailing date is filled in as the Acknowledged date for the gifts.