Along with Damian O'Broin of the rather good Irish fundraising agency, Ask Direct, I presented some findings taken from a massive international mystery shopping exercise (270 charities in six countries) at IOF London yesterday.

I'm going to post the full presentation online, but I thought it might be worth highlighting one or two specific findings in the meantime.

The first is the weird set of entities that send a thank you email in response to an online gift.

You'll see from the screen grab just some of the fun descriptions that people use. My own particular favourite is Internet. It's like being thanked for giving to a DM appeal by the Royal Mail.

To my mind it isn't really a great way to start a relationship and it looks like organisations like the Irish Heart Foundation, Barnardo's, UNICEF and Amnesty agree.

Screen shot 2011-11-24 at 13.08.51
It might take a little effort and you might even have to change the people who process your payments, but I think it might be worth turning off the default receipt system and creating your own one instead. Particularly if it results in happier donors.