More Flexible Donation Acknowledgements

Organizations often need to send two different donation messages:

• A thank-you to the donor
• A notification to someone being honored or informed (like a parent of a B’nai Mitzvah student)

Now you can do both in bulk—with a new option that adds flexibility and personalization without changing your existing workflow.

The scenario: a donation made in someone’s honor

Here’s a common example:

• A donor (Jane Rosen) contributes to the Cantors Music Fund in honor of the Bat mitzvah of Heather Boyle.
• The donor requests that a parent (Piper Boyle) be notified about the contribution.
• The system already has the notify recipient’s email address on file.

That basic “notify someone else” flow has been available for a while.

What’s new: a separate description for the notify recipient

Previously, the description entered with the donation was used everywhere:

• In the donor acknowledgement
• In the notification sent to the person being informed

Now there’s an additional description field specifically for the notify message.

• It’s automatically populated with the same description you entered during the transaction.
• But you can override it to better fit the notify recipient.

For instance, instead of sending the parent the generic transaction description, you can personalize it to something like:

• “Bat mitzvah of your daughter Heather”

This makes the message clearer and more meaningful to the person receiving the notification—especially when they aren’t the donor.

Bulk sending remains the same (just more flexible)

If you already send acknowledgements in bulk, the process is familiar:

1. Go to Queries → Financial Transactions.
2. Filter to the set of contributions you want (for example, transactions entered today).
3. Select the relevant transactions.
4. Click Bulk Acknowledge Payments.
5. Choose:
   • A template for the contributor (donor)
   • A template for the notify recipient
6. Optionally customize the subject line (if left blank, it defaults to “Donation”).
7. Review or edit the notify description (new option).
8. Click Send Acknowledgements.

If you’ve selected half a dozen—or dozens—of contributions, the system will process each one accordingly.

Why this small change matters

This enhancement keeps everything you already rely on while improving the recipient experience:

• More personalization for honorees or family members receiving notifications
• Less confusion when the donor-facing description isn’t the best wording for the notify recipient
• No extra manual work—the notify description is pre-filled unless you choose to change it

Bottom line

Bulk donation acknowledgements just got smarter. You can continue sending donor thank-yous and third-party notifications at scale—now with the ability to tailor the notify message description so it reads naturally for the person receiving it.

See the full video: https://share.shalomcloud.com/bLu9Rg6p?sa=blog_post