Fundraising Round-Up for the Bank Holiday
Proud to be a fundraiser: It's ok to cry sometimes

My Biggest Fundraising Mistakes: Not Saying Thank You

This is the first in a series of posts where I reflect on some of the biggest mistakes I've made in my decade of fundraising. Hopefully you can avoid some of the basic errors I've made over the years!

This might seem an obvious one, but it can happen (for a variety of reasons) and can lead to major problems if you don’t make amends. 

One of my responsibilities as Hospice Fundraising Manager in Peterborough was to oversee the running of our coffee shop, which was staffed entirely by volunteers.  

The volunteers were a committed bunch and worked hard to make a success of it.

Anyway, they needed a new dishwasher and we didn’t have the budget, so one of the volunteers very kindly went out and bought one.  Obviously, I needed to send her a thank you letter/phone call to acknowledge her kindness.

However, despite a reminder from the coffee shop manager I completely forgot and a few weeks later I heard through the grapevine that the volunteer was really upset about this and threatening to not come back.

What to do then?

Well, I dropped everything I was doing, bought a bunch of flowers (out my own pocket) and went straight round her house to apologise.

She really appreciated the gesture and I was able to turn round the situation, but if I’d thanked her promptly then the whole situation wouldn’t have arisen and I wouldn’t have had to go grovelling for forgiveness!  

A really simple, but important lesson.

Key Learnings:

Always say thank you promptly and sincerely.

Never miss an opportunity to show your thanks and gratitude to a donor/staff member/volunteer.

If you say you are going to do something, do it.

Don’t put off until tomorrow, something you can do today.

If you do forget to say thank you, apologise, don’t make excuses, and do your best to make amends.

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