Thank you is so simple, yet so important. This post from a blog about fundraising for nonprofits illustrates the negative power of failing to thank donors. And it jogged my memory, as did some fairly robust pleas for cash from the RNLI at a dinner on Saturday night.

I’ll be honest – and this isn’t a popular stance if you’re a sailor – I’ll find it hard to donate to the RNLI again. In 2003 I ran the Dublin marathon for three charities – the MS Society, the RNLI and Lohada, a small Tanzanian NGO I helped set up as independent back in 2001.

Of the three, the RNLI were positively ignorant about the donation I was trying to give them. The MS Society wrote to thank me, I was sent a hand-made card by one of the kids in the Tanzanian orphanage. The RNLI were obstructive from the start (as I wasn’t running solely for them, they had no way for me to fit into their system), and were completely ungrateful upon receipt of the cash.

I handed them just over €1,000, and was met with a ‘right, whatever’ response.

And at the dinner this weekend, their speaker, who was gifted the MC role at the event, seemed arrogant in her assumption that she had a right to demand money from us, as we were all marine-related folk gathered in one room.

All of which made me very angry indeed.

The old mantra of no shirt, no service, is a manners thing. If you can’t be bothered putting on a shirt to show me some respect, I can’t be bothered serving you food.

Same goes for NGOs. If I go out of my way to raise funds for you, it probably means I’d do it again. I’m a renewable revenue stream.

No thanks, no donations. Simple.