white mail is any donation that is not accompanied by a remittance device, remittance envelope, or any other vehicle that indicates what influenced the donor to make a donation to your organization. most nonprofit organizations do not properly manage these types of gifts.
For The Salvation Army, most White Mail gifts are provided in one of two ways:
- A donor deposits their check directly into the local body office.
- A donation is made from a donor’s online banking system.
Over the years, we’ve seen the latter continue to rise as more donors get used to using their online banking system, rather than personal checks.
3 White Mail Best Practices You Should Follow:
- register your white mail gifts in your donor database.We cannot stress this practice enough. If the donor’s white mail gift is not registered in your donor database, then that donor’s gift history will not be accurate. For example, if a donor calls your office and asks for a list of your giving history, and you didn’t record your gift by white mail, then you won’t have a complete list. The donor will be concerned about accounting practices and whether or not the organization appreciated their gift! if the gift is not entered into the database, it is likely that she did not receive an acknowledgment of thanks, as this is usually automatically triggered by the record of the gift entry.
- no assume white mail gifts are anonymous. Over the years, I’ve heard the local body’s opinion: “since that white mail gift was received locally, we should assume the giver wants to be anonymous.” that’s not necessarily true, and assumptions should never be made on behalf of a donor and their intended behavior. Unless a donor personally indicates that he wants to remain anonymous or does not want to be thanked, then he should process her gift as a normal gift entry. if the donor has indicated a preference for anonymity or unacknowledged, there are options within the donor registry to indicate those requests.
- don’t miss out on planned giving opportunities.let’s say you have a donor who regularly contributes to your direct mailings, but also gives a check quarterly to the local body. quarterly checks are considered white mail. but if these additional gifts have not been officially recorded within the last 10 years, a planned giving officer may overlook this donor based on the donor database’s incomplete record. On the other hand, if this donor’s record were accurately updated to include white mail checks, they would likely be at the top of a planned giving officer’s list!
Failure to register white mail gifts can be detrimental to your organization!
In addition to the donor’s gift not being acknowledged with a thank you, your giving history will not be accurate in the future. Not only will this negatively affect you in the current year, but for years to come, your organization will also miss out on potentially valuable planned giving opportunities. these best practices have to do with the donor. he wants her to be happy and support his organization for many years to come. don’t lose their trust by not properly keeping your white mail records.
learn more about:
donor management for direct mail fundraising