Learning to run a nonprofit farm hasn’t been easy. Since 100% of donations go directly to maintaining the animals I’ve struggled with trying to find a way to thank donors without spending precious money. Another issue I’ve come up against is often only having an email address of a donor, especially when they donate through this blog.
Last week someone suggested I look into www.PaperlessPost.com. Let me just start by saying…I’m super technology dumb. I’m not an early adopter by any means so I can be intimidated by the learning curve of new things. I still keep a written to do list and paper journal – even my 80 year old father keeps his writings in digital form – not me – I’m pretty old school about these things which only added to my apprehension.
After reviewing the site I discovered it’s like a contemporary, personalized Hallmark store designed perfectly for the technology-challenged like me. And thankfully they had many free designs to choose from so I could be as scaled down or elaborate as I wanted. Of course, I went with a free design that allowed me to upload my own images to personalize it for my farm. The hardest part of this was choosing from my own photos. Placing them into the design was easy peasy.
As someone who’s worked with many nonprofits over the years and now have my own, I’m always looking for ways to save money AND track results. So when I sent my Thank You cards I was surprised to see I received an email confirming my card was sent. I expected the confirmation email but what I didn’t expect was the ability to actually add additional recipients, track if the card was viewed by my recipients and recipients also have the ability reply. I like it.
Even with the free design the service itself isn’t free. Sending to each recipient is paid for by using a system of buying “coins” (you get 20 coins for $6) but since it eliminates the cost of paper notecards and gives the ability to quickly personalize electronically rather than have a graphic designer and printer involved – not to mention the time involved in that effort. That and the fact that I was able to personalize, send and track results literally in minutes makes this service a powerful one for struggling nonprofits. Save time, money and track results? Yes, please!
If any of my readers have other great suggestions to help save money and time for my nonprofit please let me know. I can never have too many tips or recommendations to help things run more smoothly around here. And a big THANK YOU to the person who turned me on to PaperlessPost.com…you’ll be getting your paperless thank you card soon. xo
Now back to my regularly scheduled animal posts!