[nisaac]

We do our acknowledgements as a conditional merge. We put the letter code Appeal, Fund or Postcard in the gift record. We have three types of conditional merges:
- by appeal: pulls by appeal id in gift and uses the appropriate letter
- by fund: pulls by fund id in gift and uses the appropriate letter
- postcard: for gifts <=$50

All of our acknowledgement letters have "if then" tribute info. For example, if the gift has a tribute, then inlcude tribute description and other tribute fields.

Also, remember, that when you use the mail merge for acknowledgements, if the gift is marked acknowledged it will not be pulled in the merge.

Some questions you might ask yourself:
- how many different acknowledgement letters do you have
- how are they related to the gift
- what information changes in a letter and why

This can be confusing - play around a little with it and you will start to get a feel for it.