Donor thank-you and yearly follow-up
When to use it
Section titled “When to use it”- An NGO, foundation, school alumni fund or charity arm takes gifts by bank transfer, cash, cheque, payment link or at events, and someone records them.
- Donors are thanked late or not at all, and first-time donors drift away.
- Your funders or board want to see how many people gave, not only how much.
Where the data comes from
Section titled “Where the data comes from”| How | What |
|---|---|
| A form your staff fill in | A Record a donation form your team fills when a gift arrives, matched to the donor by phone. It never asks for the amount. |
| A CSV upload | Optional: import past donors with their last gift date as last_donation_at, so the yearly and lapsed messages work from day one. |
What it sets up
Section titled “What it sets up”| Kind | Name | What it does | Lands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Directors | Thanks first-time donors personally. | Empty |
| Team | Fundraising | Gets the monthly donor report. | Empty |
| Form | Record a donation | Staff form to record a gift. It has no amount. It saves the gift date and campaign on the donor. | Draft, not published |
| Segment | A year since the last gift | Last gift 330 to 365 days ago. | Ready |
| Segment | Lapsed donors | Last gift 18 to 30 months ago. | Ready |
| Segment | Donors in the last 12 months | Gave in the last 12 months (for the report). | Ready |
| Template | Thank you for your gift (email) | Thank-you email (no amounts). | Ready |
| Template | Thank you for your gift (SMS) | Thank-you SMS (no amounts). | Ready |
| Template | A year of your support (email) | Yearly impact email with a gentle invitation to give again. | Ready |
| Template | A year of your support (SMS) | Yearly SMS. | Ready |
| Template | We'd love to stay in touch (email) | One warm email to donors who haven't given for a while. | Ready |
| Question | Report: gifts recorded | How many gifts were recorded in the period. | Ready |
| Question | Report: donors | How many different people gave in the period. | Ready |
| Question | Report: first-time donors | How many people gave for the first time. | Ready |
| Question | Report: gifts by campaign | Gifts recorded per campaign. | Ready |
| Report | Monthly: donor summary | Donors and first-time donors last month, by campaign. Counts only, no amounts. | Off |
| Follow-up | Donor: thank you | Thank-you SMS and email after each recorded gift; no amounts. | Off |
| Follow-up | Donor: first-time donor call | A first gift gives the thank-you team a task to thank the donor personally; saves the outcome. | Off |
| Follow-up | Donor: a year of support | Daily run over "a year since the last gift"; one impact email and SMS per year. | Off |
| Follow-up | Donor: lapsed re-engagement | Daily run over lapsed donors; one gentle email. | Off |
The questions it asks
Section titled “The questions it asks”| # | Question | Default | Fills in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What should messages call your organisation? | none, must answer | org_name |
| 2 | Finish this sentence in your own words: "Your gift helps us ..." One short line about what donations make possible. No amounts or numbers of people. | none, must answer | impact_line |
| 3 | Which campaigns or funds can a gift be recorded against? One per line. Include a general one. | General fund, Education, Emergency relief | campaigns |
| 4 | Which team thanks first-time donors personally? (it can be just you) | Directors | director_team |
| 5 | Where can people give again? (a payment link or your donate page, or leave empty) | empty: skipped | donate_url |
Other settings
Section titled “Other settings”These have defaults. Change any that don’t fit.
| Setting | Default | Key |
|---|---|---|
| Team that gets the monthly report | Fundraising | report_team |
| Sender address | ‹workspace default_sender› | email_from |
| Thank-you after the gift is recorded | 4h | thanks_delay |
| Hours to thank a first-time donor personally | 72 | call_due_hours |
| Daily send time for the yearly and lapsed messages | 09:00 | send_time |
| Monthly report (five-field cron, in the time zone below) | 0 9 2 * * | report_cron |
| Time zone | ‹workspace timezone› | timezone |
| Default phone country on the form | ‹workspace country› | default_country |
| Greeting when a first name is missing | friend | greeting_fallback |
Timings
Section titled “Timings”- Thank-you by SMS and email 4h after a gift is recorded, at most once a day per donor.
- First-time donors also create a task for Directors to thank them personally, due in 72 hours.
- Every day at 09:00 (‹workspace timezone›), donors whose last gift was between 330 and 365 days ago get the yearly email and SMS, at most once every 300 days.
- The same daily run sends one email to donors whose last gift was 18 to 30 months ago.
- Monthly report on the schedule 0 9 2 * *.
Channels
Section titled “Channels”| Channel | Needed for | Before it can send |
|---|---|---|
| sms | The thank-you and the yearly reminder | An SMS provider, or Origamy managed SMS after business verification (KYC). |
| The thank-you, the yearly impact email, the lapsed-donor email, the monthly report | A verified sending domain for ‹workspace default_sender›. |
What you need to do
Section titled “What you need to do”- Fill the Record a donation form for every gift, the same day if you can: the donor's phone, first name, whether it is their first gift, the campaign and the date. It deliberately has no amount. Keep amounts in your own books.
- Add people to the Directors and Fundraising teams.
- Verify the sending domain, connect an SMS provider or finish business verification, then switch the follow-ups and the report on. Test with your own phone and a test gift.
- Check you have the donor's permission to message them. Tell donors on your receipts or donate page that you will thank them by SMS or email.
- To start the yearly and lapsed messages from day one, import past donors as a CSV with last_donation_at as an ISO date, e.g. 2026-01-15.
- Many gifts arrive as bank transfers, so record them when the credit shows on your statement, and put one person in charge of doing it weekly. The form takes ten seconds with the phone number; a donor who gives through a payment link needs the same entry.
- Keep amounts out of Origamy. The form has no amount question on purpose, so a thank-you, a task or a report can never leak one. Your finance records stay the source of truth.
- Ask donors on the donate page or receipt whether they are happy to hear from you by SMS and email, and keep to that. The lapsed email is sent once, and anyone who unsubscribes is left alone.
- If your donors mostly use WhatsApp, a personal voice note from the director to first-time donors often means more than an automatic message. The task is there for that.
This playbook is synthesized: no customer has run it with us yet. If you build it, tell us what you changed, and we’ll replace it with the real version.
Copilot eval
Section titled “Copilot eval”The request used to test the copilot on this playbook (a live eval):
We're a small charity. Our team will record each gift on a form. Thank the donor by SMS and email the same day without mentioning how much they gave. If it's their first gift, give our director a task to thank them personally within 3 days. About a year after someone's last gift, email them about what their support has done and invite them to give again. Send our fundraising team a monthly count of donors and first-time donors.
It passes when every piece is a valid draft and everything lands off, with at least: form, segment, workflow, message_template, report. It must never use: discount, cart, checkout, purchase, revenue, customers, upsell.