Making Donations

In the last few months we did a few various donations, and I thought you might find the responses I got very interesting.

(1) In this instance I emailed a guy and asked if their outfit would like a donation of some videos. No strings, and I would ship them if interested. He said yes go ahead. I never even got a thank you email, note in the mail or anything. The retail value was somewhere around $500.00.

(2) The next one was more like I expected. The funds were sent for a specific thing, but that was satisfied so I get a call asking me to direct my donation to a different project. Sounds fine with me. Then a few days later I get a written certificate with a nice thank you note. All more than I expected, which was maybe a thank you card.

(3) With this outfit we received a 1-year membership to their organization, 10% off any gift shop items, and 10% off their rides. In addition there was a nice folder with some 8x10 color photos, plus a nice thank you letter. A few days later I got another thank you letter from them which was written to me by the president of the organization.

The point of the above is not that we donated stuff, but what sort of experiences they turned out to be. The first outfit that never said anything will not be getting anything else in the future. Not that I expected a big pat on the back but what I sent them they could use, and a simple thanks would have done the job in my book.

I never really expected anything, but I think the least a group can do is send some form of email, call, or very least a thank you note. What sort of experiences have you all had along these lines both good and bad.

On a similar topic I was once told not to donate things to a museum, cause they would likely never see the light of day again. I had an experience where one place had some reel-to-reel audio that I thought I might be able to use. I offered to pay for a transfer to something digital, and they did not want to let it go. So there it sits where nobody will likely ever use it or know its even there.

I bring this up since everyone is constantly asking for donations. Folks may only be able to give once or twice a year, and cannot help everyone that needs it.
Welcome any thoughts.
Greg