AI v Human Thank You Letters
Watch the full 30 minute results presentation for in-depth analysis, examples and insight
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Results
Survey respondents performed about the same as guessing randomly - people couldn’t tell between AI and human written letters.
Respondents rated AI-written letters significantly higher than human written letters.
A custom-GPT trained on deep-research around gratitude and best practice in thanking performed higher than using a regular version of Chat-GPT.
See the presentation for charts and more information on the results.
Our Recommendations
Fundraisers should look at how they can use AI to assist with thanking. There are two parts to this. 1. Writing thank you letters for specific campaigns and supporters. 2. Using AI-powered automations to speed up processing.
To improve AI outputs fundraisers should use advanced prompting techniques. Here is the prompt we shared in the presentation.
Every fundraising team should customise their AI tool of choice and give it guidance and upload files with:
Audience understanding and insight (values, personality, identity etc),
Tone of voice and brand guidelines (using different voices for different content creation)
Examples of high performing content i.e. successful appeals, stories and case studies (being careful not to include any personal data or information)
Any time saved should be used to improve gratitude. That is, adding personal touches and doing more outreach to supporters - handwritten cards and notes, phone calls, videos, reporting on impact etc.
Every fundraising team should have a gratitude calendar with plans for different supporter segments and triggering events i.e. regular givers, new supporters, event participants, anniversaries, donation thresholds, supporter milestones etc.
Further Examples And Thanks
Our Gratitude Blueprint is a curated library of thanking and gratitude resources for you to use.
We’d love to include your favourite thank you letter or gratitude example. Do send over any examples you love or are particularly proud of.
A big thank you to the charities and fundraisers who allowed us to use their appeals and thank you letters in the survey.
Thank you to everyone who took part in our thank you letter survey. We hope you find the results interesting.
Want To Improve Your Thanking And Gratitude?
Here at Thread Fundraising we can help in three specific ways to help you become great at gratitude:
Audit your current thanking and gratitude systems, processes and content. We deliver comprehensive reports with specific feedback and guidance on how to improve.
Set up AI-powered workflows and automations that free up time for your fundraising and supporter care teams.
Provide training and coaching to fundraising teams to elevate your stewardship that will surprise and delight your supporters.
Get in touch if you’d like to work with us to help you become great at gratitude.
