Disclaimer: Please note that none of the information contained in these files is meant to be professional information. Consult your vet, attorney or other professional for their advice. To: equinerescue@imagicomm.com From: "Jennifer Williams" Subject: EQ-ResQ: Donors Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 09:17:41 -0500 Sender: owner-equinerescue@imagicomm.com Reply-To: equinerescue@imagicomm.com, "Jennifer Williams" Question for you all - What (if anything) do you do for your donors? This is the first year we've had some really significant sized donations, and I want to make sure all of our donors feel appreciated - that they know how glad we are they came along, and that they did indeed help the horses. I just thought I would see what others do. (Currently, we send thank you cards to anyone who donates - and if they donate for a specific horse's care, we send them a picture of that horse and an update on how the horse is doing). Jennifer Williams (www.vanbasti.com) President, Lone Star Equine Rescue - http://www.lser.org Equine Behavior Net - http://www.equine-behavior.net Imprint-Training.com - http://www.imprint-training.com ========== "Jennifer Williams" ====== Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 09:32:55 -0600 (MDT) To: equinerescue@imagicomm.com From: Pat Calloway Subject: Re: EQ-ResQ: Donors Jennifer asks what other rescues do for their donors and says she currently sends thank you cards to everyone and photos and updates if they are sponsoring a particular horse .... I think what you are doing is probably sufficient. I know when a charity starts giving out too much stuff as a 'thank you' or an incentive to donate, I start wondering how much of my donation is actually going to help whatever I donated for in the first place. I know not everyone feels that way, but thought I'd put in my two cents that sending material objects or going to a lot of trouble printing things up may turn some donors or potential donors off. Perhaps a credit on your website (if ok with the donor) or in a newsletter? Of course by highlighting the big $$ donors, then the folks that might send in $5 or $10 might think that their donations aren't appreciated - and those smaller donations do add up. It's sort of a two edged sword - I'll be interested in seeing what others do as rescues or how donors perceive what's done for them. I think a thank you or some acknowledgement is essential, but more than that - I dunno. Pat Calloway, Equine Rescue Listowner epona@concentric.net (AZ) http://www.crt-stable.com/equinerescue ========== Pat Calloway ====== To: equinerescue@imagicomm.com From: "Jennifer Williams" Subject: Re: EQ-ResQ: Donors Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 10:39:14 -0500 >I think what you are doing is probably sufficient. I know when a charity >starts giving out too much stuff as a 'thank you' or an incentive to >donate, I start wondering how much of my donation is actually going to help >whatever I donated for in the first place. I know not everyone feels >that way, but thought I'd put in my two cents that sending material objects >or going to a lot of trouble printing things up may turn some donors or >potential donors off. That's what I thought, too, but I wanted other people's input. PLUS if you start giving gifts (even 'small' ones likes pens, stickers, whatever) to each donor, you end up giving a pen that cost you $5 to make to a donor who donated $5 - they could have kept their money and you kept your pen! >It's sort of a two edged sword - I'll be interested in seeing what others >do as rescues or how donors perceive what's done for them. I think a >thank you or some acknowledgement is essential, but more than that - I >dunno. That's what I think, too - so I'll be interested to get other's opinions. Jennifer Williams (www.vanbasti.com) President, Lone Star Equine Rescue - http://www.lser.org Equine Behavior Net - http://www.equine-behavior.net Imprint-Training.com - http://www.imprint-training.com ========== "Jennifer Williams" ====== To: equinerescue@imagicomm.com From: dlinkous@radix.net Subject: Re: EQ-ResQ: Donors Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 15:30:13 -0400 >Question for you all - What (if anything) do you do for your donors? If you have a newsletter, you can have a section listing donors during the current period. You can also have a section for regular donors -- for example, I donate to Day's End through the Combined Federal Campaign, which takes money out of my paycheck for them each month. Day's End separates business donors from regular donors in their newsletter listing, and also has a section for sponsors -- sponsors are those who donate a lot of money for a specific item, like a big truck or trailer, a new barn, or like big ticket items -- usually there will be several sponsors for one of these items. They also have special large dollar donors they call "Blue Ribbon Sponsors", so you could have this or "Gold Donors", "Silver Donors", or the like. If you use the larger amounts for specific projects, you can name things after the donor, for example: "This fence line donated by Mr. and Mrs. Smith". You can have signs on every thing at your farm for which donations or money raising campaigns were used, like "This round pen was paid for with procedes from the X Horse Rescue's Fall Open House 1998." You can even list names for an item that had several donors. Of course, some donors do not wish their names to be made public, so be sure to ask. I think signs are a great thing -- as visitors tour your place, they see right in front of them the results of donations. A constant reminder that it takes money from the outside to keep the rescue going. Plus, don't forget to thank volunteers with a card or letter now and then, making a formal acknowledgement they will appreciate. You can list them in your newsletter too. Volunteers can burn out quickly, so recognition is another way of keeping them, and of attracting more. For larger donations, you might want to write a letter instead of a card, to make it more personal. Whatever you do, if the donation is money, you want to acknowledge the amount on your thank you card or letter, and state that you are a 501(c)(3) organization (if you are), with your group's full legal name. If the donation was materials or something other than money, you shouldn't put down an amount, but leave that up to them, just describe the donation. Your assessment of its value may differ from theirs, but it's their tax return and their responsibility to report it accurately, not yours. Diana ========== dlinkous@radix.net ====== To: equinerescue@imagicomm.com From: "Mike Dodge" Subject: Re: EQ-ResQ: Donors Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 02:40:05 -0400 Everyone that donates to us gets a receipt and personally signed letter from thanking them for the donation regardless of the size of the donation whether it may be cash or in kind doesn't matter. In our new sponsorship program the sponsor pays $125 a month which is basically full care and we send them a frameable certificate with a picture of the horse they are sponsoring and a coffee mug with the horse's picture on it. Cost for the certificate is about $0.10 and the mug is $11.00. We don't have many at $125 a month but there are several and the regular income helps. One lady that lives fairly close comes to visit her sponsored horse every Friday. She is allowed to groom Free and brings her cooked carrots because she has no teeth. Every once in a while she will more money than what she pledged to do. The printer we use is a Textronix Phasar 850 which retails for about $4000 but we got for free from Xerox. If you are interested in one go to www.freecolorprinters.com. We agreed to make 2590 copies a month and you have to buy the supplies from them but this machine is fantastic. We use photo paper for the certificates and a print shop could not make better copies. We also use it for making up handouts and newsletters. Full color with pictures of the horses. Print shops charge about $1.00 per page for color and we do it for 1/10 of that cost. In addition, each donor goes on our mailing list for newsletters which results in more donations from the same people. This year alone we had a nice 1995 Sundowner horse trailer, 29 prints from the Ozz Franca studio in Santa Monica, CA and a used Lanier copier which retailed for $14,995 new donated. This is the first time in our history that the rescue is breaking even financially. Donors are our life. We cultivate them very carefully. Mike and Chris Dodge Founders H.O.R.S.E. Rescue & Sanctuary www.angelfire.com/home/rescuehorse1/index.html ========== "Mike Dodge" ====== Disclaimer: Please note that none of the information contained in these files is meant to be professional information. Consult your vet, attorney or other professional for their advice.