Monthly Acknowledgement Letters

Ashley Light · September 2017

Hello, we have general thank you letters. I want to vary the letters each month. I have created a different letter for each month.

When it comes to processing the gifts and the letters each month, I can scroll through and select the letter for that month. Is there an easier way to select general thank you letter, and have RE automatically select the letter for the current month? Someone suggested using a query, but I'm not sure how that would work. I don't mind manually selecting the letter for the month, but I'm thinking there must be something a bit simpler. Thanks!

Note- I also want to do this with monthly recurring donations and their letters.

Joanne Felci 2 · September 2017

Ashley,

Are you entering gifts in a batch?

If so you can select a default letter for the entire batch within the defaults tab of the gift batch setup (you need to select the letter field from the field tab first)

Or are you using a mail merge for your gifts? Then you can either query based on date or whatever and run them through a mail merge query for that month's letter

Ryan Hyde · September 2017

If you're using the mail module to generate your letters, you could set up a separate module for each month. In each module, you can edit the letter associated with "general TY letter" or whatever you call it in your shop. So then each month, you'd just make sure you're using the module for that month to generate the correct letter. It would take non-trivial work to get this all set up correctly the first time around, but once it's all set up, actually generating the mail will be easy.

Ashley Light · September 2017

I haven't used Batch yet. I've been using Mail Merge. How would I use the Mail Module and set up a separate modeule for each month?

Thanks, I don't mind spending extra time now to get it all set up and flow easily.

Ryan Hyde · September 2017

Okay, so take a second and just look at what exists in Mail > Donor Acknowledgement Letters. Each item that shows up on the right hand side of the screen is what I'm referring to as a "module."

So let's say you have one module (you probably have more, but we'll make this simple). In that module, when you click "Send to Word merge wizard" (or just the Merge button in the lower right, they both do the same thing) you are able to go through and manually select each letter type available and set up a letter associated with that letter type. Whatever you put in that Word document within the mail module for that specific letter is what will come out for every donatoin with that letter type. This much you probably already know.

If you wanted to do different letters for each month, what you could do is got to File > Save As in the module and save a copy of the module (maybe titled September Mail). In your new September Mail module, you would go in and write a new letter for your "general TY" letter, customizing it in whatever way is appropriate for you.

You can go through this same process for every month of the year if you like.

So if you had modules for every month, then you just make sure you use the module for the month it currently is and presto, you have the right letter for that month.

The beauty of a system like this is that you never have to remember which letter to pick while doing gift entry. You always just pick "general TY" (or whatever it is in your shop) because the letter that actually pops out is dictated by the module you select at the time you generate your mail.

Michelle Reid 2 · November 2020

Is there a way to query on what date the letter was produced?

I've discovered that some letters are being produced multiple times, so I'm trying to determine the breakdown in our process. I can't rely on Acknowledgement Date because in the past I used a global change to update Not Ack to Ack, but forgot to update the date field at the same time.

JoAnn Strommen · November 2020

If you can't go by the acknowledgement date field, I don't know how you could tell. Last change could refer to that or any other change. Do you run the letters based on gift batch and save a file? If so, the file date that might give you some info.

If you're finding letters produced more than once, IMO, it sounds like someone is choosing the option "No" to mark letters as acknowledged when prompted if you want to mark them as acknowledged. In my experience once, you select yes and the letters are marked as acknowledged, you will not be able to run a letter for that gift again without changing the field back to 'not acknowledged.'

Monthly Acknowledgement Letters

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