If, by chance, dear donor, you stumble across this letter, I hope you can feel the love.
In some ways, the lack of contact information adds another layer of beauty to any gift. These people aren’t doing it for the accolades. They don’t want to see their name on our website or in our annual report. They don’t need anyone else to know they are silently and steadfastly supporting the community they love. They don’t even need me, the nonprofit CEO, to know who they are, to share how grateful I am, or to tell them how hard our small team will work to stretch those dollars as far as they can possibly go. To be honest, I kind of love this. And I respect it. Which is why I won’t spend any more time trying to figure out how to reach these wonderful folks. But I will express my gratitude here, to you and all the other Unknown donors.
Dear Unknown Donor,
Please know how much your gifts mean to us. As a small nonprofit trying to do big things, we truly believe that every dollar matters. And every donation can change a life. We see your gifts come in, and we are full of joy and gratitude. Sometimes, you elect to remain anonymous, and we will respectfully honor that wish. Other times, we receive a gift with a name but no contact information. And we will honor that as well. We promise not to waste our precious resources stalking you. We will not ask our dedicated team to dive deep into the internet to maybe send heartfelt thanks to the wrong address or individual. Still other times, you give through your employer or a third party system that doesn’t share your information with us. Maybe you have to opt in for contact information to be shared and you didn’t know. Or maybe you think we’re getting your information from the payment processer and we’re not. Or maybe it just feels good enough to give without being showered with gratitude. But gratitude is in our veins. We love saying thank you. And we truly mean it from the depts of our hearts. Missing out on the opportunity to appreciate you is tough, but we will soldier on. We will keep doing the important work that you want us to do. The work that you trust us to do. The work that you support with your generous, anonymous contributions. To all of our wonderful Unknown Donors out there, we want to say this: If you’re not getting thanked by United Way, it’s only because we don’t have the information we need to contact you. Or because you have asked us not to. But oh how we love you so!
With heaps of gratitude,
Kristi Birkeland President/CEO, United Way of Whatcom County