Informal vs. Formal Salutations

Beth O'Grady

I was curious as to how many of you use formal vs. informal salutations in your appeals. In the past our org has mostly used informal, but we had a really small, familiar constituent base. We've since quadrupled our constituent base (still really small though) and I'm trying to clean up addressee/salutations and enter in genders and move towards a more formal addressee/salutation. In what instances do you use informal (other than when gender is unknown or a personal relationship with organization exists)?

Christine Robertson

I think that a lot of it depends on your donor base and your organizational culture.  Most of the places I've worked with have preferred the formal, but, if you have a younger donor base and/or your staff has a different relationship with donors (schools - most donors are parents who are very connected, radio stations - you feel a connection to your station and your on-air personalities, etc.), then informal may be appropriate.  Overall, I think it's most important to be consistent and to use the add/sal formulas (I would say that you should almost NEVER use the Edit feature - it really makes it hard to update the fields).  Set up the fields the way that you want them in Config and then use Global Change to update the whole system.  It's a big task, but it'll be much better once it's over!!

Damian Lenshek

This was a big question for me at some of the organizations I helped in the past, but currently we have a clear policy of treating donors as friends and partners, and part of that is an informal salutation always. We do maintain a formal salutation field, but haven't used it. Several times each year, and before any mailing goes out, we'll manually/visually scan all the salutations to make sure any data imports haven't accidentally introduced errors.

Nickalaus Goodman 2

I agree it all really depends on what your organizations culture.  We always use formal Salutations for Envelope addresses or address blocks.  We then tend to be less formal in addressing the letter.  It really all depends on the donor.  The best part is that in eTapistry you dont have to be standard accross the board.  You have these two fields on every persona and you can be formal with those you wish and informal with those your closer to.  

JoAnn Strommen

We use informal 99.99% of the time.  It better portrays the relationship we have or want to have with constituents.  Our CEO signature line and signature is also informal.  Our envelope, address block and saluation use the same format/name.



 

Nicole S

Everyone is right about it being dependent on the culture of your org, your donors, and the relationship you want to have.  But I also think it's a good idea to set up some alternates.  We use a more informal unless our donor says otherwise, because that's the preference of the CEO.  Some CEOs prefer formal.  But we also have an formal set up for when we want to use that.  We also have individual (for couples) and more personal salutations set up based on who is signing the letter.  Some people really prefer to use formal if they don't know the person and we want the signer to be comfortable.  For instance, we may use a more formal salutation with a more formal letter, like for a grant. 



Personally, I like to use formal and let the person signing the letter personalize with the first name in small mailings, and informal in large that won't be hand personalized.

Robert Brown

In my school, it depends on the mailing.  Some appeals to parents come from another parent, so they address them by first names.  Some come from the head of school, and we keep a separate Salutation field marked "Head's Salutation" that he lets me know which are informal and which are formal (and this can change often throughout the year).  I find that keeps it easier, no need to wonder which one to use if he's already told me!

Michelle Gundrum

We use both informal and formal salutations. It depends on who we are mailing to and who the letter or solicitation is coming from. For example, if a letter is coming from our ED or Development Director and is going to the Board of directors, we'll use an informal salutation. Solicitation letters that are going to members or donors will include a formal salutation. We have several different salutations set up in our database, again depending on the person and their constituencies, and we build our mailing lists to include the correct information.