"Thank You" is never cliche, but...

After a recent meeting, my friend and co-conspirator called out his parting appreciation down the hall as I left. It started off strong- the gratitude, at least, was real. But as he said the words, they trailed off in a tone of awkward hesitation and almost ended with a question mark:

"Thanks!.. for being a Pillar of our Community?"

I caught the bemused and befuddled eye of a stranger walking behind me as he headed for the bathroom door. He obviously thought my friend was crazy. It sounded crazy to me too, even though I knew it was at the same time sincere and a little tongue-in-cheek (quite a feat). I, for one, was laughing all the way down the stairs and onto the street. Why did his little joke strike me as so hilarious? Partly because I was laughing at myself. At my last job, I TOTALLY used that exact phrase as a label for a sponsorship level for a golf tournament. To hear one of many cliched fundraising metaphors actually said out loud in everyday conversation was absolutely bizarre beyond belief. How did I ever think it was a good idea to write that on paper?

It's not uncommon to give strange, cheesy names to sponsorship or giving levels, but would you actually say things like that to people directly? It seems to me that we resort to this kind of language because we don't really know our constituents all that well. This stuff is burned into our brains from countless banquets and mail pieces, and it's hard to think fresh thoughts about how to express true gratitude when one is crunched by deadlines.

But I think if we hope or expect people to give for the "right" reasons, we should do a little work to thank them the "right" way. It's particularly hard to do this in the non-profit field, of all places, when under-paid, over-worked staff (talk about a cliche!) start to feel like they give more to the organization through their own blood, sweat, and tears and hardly get recognized for it. Who has time to be creative about thanking people who give money? Developing a culture of philanthropy means work has to happen on both sides.