There’s an old saying in sales that “people buy from people.” Even in the digital age, where more and more interactions happen with the click of a button from behind a screen, the majority of transactions – especially large, luxury transactions – still happen between a customer and a representative of the company or organization that they’re buying from; in fact, the larger the purchase, the more human interaction is typically involved to make the prospective buyer feel at-ease and well-taken care of.

This is just as true in the nonprofit sector. As much as people want to support organizations and causes that they care about, they also want to feel that the people that make up the organization care about them in return. Such sentiments make them feel a part of the mission, and therefore more invested in its success.

The idea is that making donors feel included, appreciated, and considered – often called “donor stewardship” – leads to those donors feeling more invested in the organization’s success, and donating more in turn, and it’s not just a gut feeling shared by fundraisers from organizations large and small across the board; it’s backed up by data.

We wanted to show that these human interactions could be scaled effectively by using handwritten letters in stewardship communications. To that end, we undertook a two-phased A/B test with Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston (CJP)