Wanted: Creative solution for late letters, never sent

March 29, 2023 4:51 PM

What would you do if you were handed a pile of letters at your work place, that were supposed to have been mailed months ago, but were never mailed. Any solution welcome--aside from hand them back.

Trust me when I say that I cannot hand these letters back to the person who gave them to me, nor can I go to this person's supervisor. Let's call this person "Sam." Sam is my boss, and I gave him the letters months ago to write a personal notes on and mail. These letters are donor thank yous. Sam never did it and handed it back to me to do. I have a personal relationship with many of these donors, and feel mortified to send them now. Is there any face-saving way to get this done?

posted by biscuits to Grab Bag (22 answers total)

Best answer: I’d just send them. If they have dates on the letters, add a handwritten note saying “Dear John, a few donor letters fell under a cabinet in my coworker’s office and were just found today- I’m sorry for the delay in sending! Thank you again for your generous donation.”

Going forward, clearly Sam can’t be trusted so you need to send weekly nudges and make sure the loop closes on your end: “Hi Sam! Can you write notes on these and return to me, I’ll mail them for you! I’ll remind you every week because I know you’re busy, hoping to send them all by date.”
posted by nouvelle-personne at 4:56 PM on March 29, 2023 [32 favorites]

Best answer: Josh Kornbluth dealt with a very similar situation at his job and depicted it in the memoir film "Haiku Tunnel"; in short, he went through some odd personal experiences that gave him a fresh perspective, and then was able to view the task as just a task, and to view the letters as just letters, and then to process and send them without guilt or shame.
posted by brainwane at 5:20 PM on March 29, 2023 [15 favorites]

Best answer: I vote just send them, no apology needed. Apologizing or making excuses just highlights the lateness. I think I read this in Miss Manners regarding late thank-you notes for weddings.
posted by muddgirl at 5:44 PM on March 29, 2023 [11 favorites]

My answer is assuming they are a few months late, and not, like, 10+ months delayed.
posted by muddgirl at 5:45 PM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I would just send them. It's common for places to do these at the end of the year with your total contributions for the year on them so I don't think people will even think of them as late. Also worth putting the task in perspective, nobody is waiting on a donor thank you letter so there is no harm in sending them late except possible confusion if you send them 1+ year late.
posted by hermanubis at 6:06 PM on March 29, 2023 [6 favorites]

I agree with others. Send them now (don't deliberate any longer). I don't even know that you need the apology note. If I got one of these, I think I would just say "huh, mail is weird" and assume there was some lost-letter fiasco. I would see the date of your letter and feel fine and be glad I got it within the same tax year. No worries here.
posted by Miko at 6:30 PM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

I would add a short note, per nouvelle-personne's suggestion above. I say this because if I were the person receiving the late letter, I would appreciate some sort of apology/explanation from the sender.
posted by alex1965 at 6:45 PM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Whatever was donated has probably been used, to good effect, in the extra time. Perhaps you could include a note mentioning how their donation in particular was used. I think that would make the thank you extremely meaningful and awesome.

If it's all monetary donations, perhaps you could say something like "The meals we were able to serve the nights of February 6,7, and 8 were about the same value as your donation. Thanks to you, 52 people weren't hungry on that Thursday, 46 on Friday, and 72 people were able to be unstressed about their meal on that Saturday night."
posted by amtho at 6:47 PM on March 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

Also, though, it's probably fine if you send them with no extra comment, but you could also mention it personally when you talk to these donors next time. The fact that you care about this says a lot about you, and it could end up being a positive if you handle it as an opportunity to share your genuine feelings.
posted by amtho at 6:50 PM on March 29, 2023

They already have personal notes on them. Adding another note, especially an apology, undermines the whole exercise and looks bad.

You’re overthinking this, just send them now.
posted by kapers at 7:00 PM on March 29, 2023 [6 favorites]

>They already have personal notes on them.
It sounds like they don't have personal notes, because Sam flaked on that part of the task too.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 7:25 PM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

You could give them a bit of a working over, some phantom pen scratches, maybe even a slight bit of water damage at the edge. If I received something like that I would just assume that it had gotten lost and bounced around in the postal system for awhile.
posted by mannequito at 8:23 PM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Grit your teeth and just send them as is. Just send them. Put 'em in the mail. Don't think about it. Just send.

Do some ordinary follow-up with your donors in a few weeks. If anyone mentions the belatedness of the letter, you can honestly just say "oh my goodness, those were supposed to have gone out ages ago! Glitch in the matrix, eh?" and then go back to chatting about the latest nice news.

Your favorite donors already know that you're an on-top-of-things person and won't care that they got a late letter; the savvier ones will guess exactly why. It's not going to reflect badly on you.

/fellow Development person
posted by desuetude at 8:46 PM on March 29, 2023 [4 favorites]

https://www.askamanager.org/2014/05/your-7-biggest-career-sins.html

Sin 5: Reign of Fire

“When I was first starting out in nonprofit fundraising, I worked at a small and dysfunctional organization that had a decent sized silent auction. One of our donors gave us a bunch of time shares for the auction. The ED asked me to handle all the legal paperwork for transferring the deeds and titles and whatnot. The process was incredibly confusing, and no one at the various county governments was helpful, only advising that we hire a real estate attorney to do the paperwork. The agency refused to do so, saying, ‘You’re smart, just figure it out!’ When I asked for help, I was ignored.

Just follow the link for some light relief
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 10:15 PM on March 29, 2023

You don't need a creative solution or any notes explaining the delay. This kind of thing can be hand-waved away to the vagaries of the postal system. I also work in this area. It's not ideal but I wouldn't really think anything of it, especially since you have a personal relationship with these donors and they already know you're generally on top of things.
posted by unicorn chaser at 4:11 AM on March 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Just send them. Most people will assume that it's the postal system's fault. Mail service has gotten really terrible in many parts of the country -- my city has some neighborhoods that intermittently go weeks without any residential mail delivery. My own building's outgoing mail wasn't picked up or processed for so long that a letter I mailed from the actual post office arrived before a letter mailed from home almost a month prior did, both letters going to the same recipient.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:03 AM on March 30, 2023

Agreed with everyone else - most people will think nothing of when they arrive, particularly at this time of year when it's tax time; they may just think that this process is linked to this time of year, perhaps. The recipients aren't thinking about it as much as you are.
posted by urbanlenny at 6:40 AM on March 30, 2023

No one knows or cares what the boss' handwriting looks like. A dear friend helped me write wedding thank yous and signed my name, and it was fun with some wine, recommend. Find someone to add the boss' note and sign, then send them. Any (unlikely) fallout is on your boss, not on you.
posted by theora55 at 6:57 AM on March 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Oh I do agree that if Sam didn't write personal notes as expected, you can definitely do that before mailing. But again IMO no apology or excuse, "I wanted to let you know that your donation bought 6 bicycles for underprivileged youth! Thank you so much for your generosity!"
posted by muddgirl at 11:17 AM on March 30, 2023

Honestly, donor thank you letters are appropriate any time.

We all try to get them out the door quickly, for good reasons. But for that reason, getting one randomly some months later could actually have more positive impact, not less. This is clearly a "hand made" and sincere thank you, not just the product of some super-efficient automated process. That counts for a lot.
posted by flug at 2:08 PM on March 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Just send them. 99% will just assume their letter was delayed in the mail, the other 1% will shrug it off or mention it the next time they speak with you. If they do, just have a response prepared that makes it clear you weren't at fault, but without dropping anyone in the shit.
posted by dg at 8:34 PM on March 30, 2023

Ugh. This is bad, but reflecting poorly on your organisation, not you. Agree with just send them and move on. There isn't a face-saving way to handle this without calling more attention to the oversight. Obviously you have learned something valuable from this.

You don't mention what magnitude of gifts were talking about, but you might find a way to flag those donor accounts for future TLC, and perhaps send a second thank you at the end of the fiscal or annual year, with an update about what was accomplished in the past year using funds from generous people like them. And depending on how you recognize donors in newsletters or annual reports, can you work with your marketing/comms team to make sure these people are acknowledged in print? Some donors really want/care about external acknowledgement, other donate for more intrinsic satisfaction and won't be fussed about acknowledgement letters.

If these are major gifts (however your organisation classifies those) then I would follow up the letters a few weeks later with a call from your boss or a senior executive. That is, if your organisation cares about getting another donation next year.
posted by amusebuche at 9:41 PM on March 30, 2023