Playgroup donation

[julz09]

Just wanted to know peoples views on this to see if IABU? Ds went to a playgroup for just over a year, it is run as a charity and they are always fundraising, asking for donations etc. The playgroup was excellent and when ds finished at Christmas (he started nursery in Jan) dh and I decided to make a donation to the playgroup. Ds and i dropped off a card ds had made for the staff and a cheque for a couple of hundred pounds to go towards learning stuff for the children. This was 2 weeks ago now and so far i have never had an acknowledgement or even a thank you from the manager for the money. The cheque has cleared as the money has come out the bank. AIBU to think this is bad manners? How hard is it to write a quick email to say thank you? A lot of the other people who donate or fundraise have pieces in the local paper where the playgroup make a public thank you! I most definitely dont want a public thank you and i specificaly went in past when there would be no parents there as i did not want other parents knowing as it is none of their business. It just grates me that they seem so ungrateful for the donation. Im starting to wish i had donated the money to another local cause.

If you're that bothered why don't you phone & ask if they got the cheque?

Even though I know you know they have banked it.

they are probably very busy building a monument in your name

Of course yanbu. It is bad manners not to acknowledge a donation but that is my job to do for a local fundraising body and I still haven't gotten around to christmas thank you's; not because we're not extremely grateful but time v's a broken computer (now fixed) and a habit of putting things on the long finger.....I'm off now to do them !!
PS I would ring to ask did they receive your donation if only because it will make the point that you did expect to hear from them. A small point subtly made

Is it not normal practice to at least receive an acknowledgement of donations received? A short 'thank you' note or some such?

Call and ask if they have received it.

Maybe they thought it was to pay your bill? They may not have realised ti was a donation yet

They should say thank you, obviously that's just good manners.

But you didn't do it for thanks, and anyway, it's likely to benefit your child more than it benefits any if the staff that you want thanks from. If its run as a charity, then I expect the people running it put in a lot of extra work that they deserve just as much thanks for.

I help run a small charity, and rightly I am very meticulous about making sure that people are thanked for the help they do. But I'm not one of the beneficiaries or any donations, I'm the one giving up my time and often spending my own money to help other people, so I wouldn't be impressed if anyone got snotty with me for being a little late with a thank you. They gave to the charity because they wanted to, they got the feel good factor from that and the charities intended beneficiaries will benefit. So what is more important? The thank you, or the work that these people put in in the first place.

Also, sometimes I don't give thanks instantly because I like to tell out donors where there money is going. Perhaps the organisers of this playgroup are waiting to have their meeting where they will talk about what to spend the money on, and will thank you when they can tell you where your money is going.

Only if i wanted a monument or public thank you i would have done fundraising so everyone knew. I specificaly made a private personal donation and all i would have liked is an acknowledgement and thank you. Its a small playgroup it takes a couple of min to say thank you thats all.

My son no longer goes to this playgroup so the money for new materials will not benefit him but that was not the point it was to benefit future children. We live in the scottish farming countryside so no snotty city attitudes here thank you. Regardless of where we are, how much the staff do its a simple matter of manners. The manager has been firing off emails for the last 2 weeks so computer is in fine working order. I have donated to plenty places over the years, toys, books etc and the people have always taken a min to say thank you and when volunteering in places and been on the other end i have always thanked people to that have donated. Im shocked that people think this is unreasonable or a matter of a person being snooty.

Sorry, I missed the bit where you said your ds had left. Reading too fast and I get a bit of a bee in my bonnet about people demanding thanks from me. Probably because I worry so much that I haven't thanked someone that I should have done.

It's not unreasonable to expect a thank you, I don't think anyone has told you that it is.

But the people benefitting from your generosity are small children, no one else, and it's not them you are expecting the thank you from, which makes the whole thank you thing a bit over the top in my opinion. We do it out of manners, it's polite and the nicer way to live, I know that. But I just think we can take it too far sometimes. What's the need to be thanked by someone who isn't going to benefit from the thing you gave? It seems a bit pointless.

I realise I may well be in the minority for thinking this, but I'm not saying you shouldn't have had a thank you, I'm just saying that you have no real reason to get upset by the lack of the thank you when it's coming from someone who isn't going to benefit from your gift anyway.

I don't think its unreasonable to have expected a quick thank you. But I would just forget about it now. They probably had all the best intentions but it just never got sorted in the end.

I think it is disappointing that you haven't had a thank you BUT, having been involved in Playgroup(as a volunteer) for a long time it might be a bit of a grey area as to who sends the thank you - ie: should it be the Manager of the Playgroup, or the Treasurer, or the Secretary, or the Chairperson? I know that sounds a bit disorganised but its not like a formal business where everyone has set 'roles', most of the 'officers' of the charity will be volunteers. remembers from bitter experience having to do nearly everything myself .

What you did was a very kind thing, let that knowledge be your 'thank you' .

Okay thanks everyone. Ds has started at a new nursery now and loves it. I have decided to donate time instead to the new school. I only have 1 child and no experience of how parents think about this kind of stuff and am finding it a mine field. New area, unfriendly locals and the only people i can get opinions from is through MN but i live in a different part of the country and a lof of the things i read about dont apply here and parents attitudes can be different towards stuff (people here are about 30 years behind the rest of the country). Thanks again though

YANBU.
I would ring and just enquire as to whether they have received your donation.
They are probably very grateful and will verbally thank you for it-hopefully!

I have just recieved an email with the snack menu for this week at the playgroup. Have replied wishing them all a happy new year, asked if its possible to be removed from the parents email notifications as ds does not go anymore and said i hoped the donation will make lots of little kids happy by going towards new learning materials. Thanks again for everyones replies.