Writing to Thank Someone You Have Never Met
Launch library · evergreen read
It is entirely possible to write a genuinely meaningful thank you letter to someone never actually met in person at all, a distant service member, a worker in another city, an organisation's wider staff as a whole, provided the letter focuses closely on the real impact of their work rather than on any personal familiarity that simply does not exist between the two of them.
Without shared history to draw upon in the writing, specificity becomes even more important than usual to genuinely include. Describing exactly what the work actually meant, in concrete and clearly grounded terms rather than vague generalities, gives the letter real substance that a lack of personal connection might otherwise leave feeling somewhat hollow or generic to the person reading it.
These letters often mean a very great deal precisely because they arrive entirely unprompted by any prior relationship between the two people. A complete stranger taking the time to write shows quite clearly that the impact of the work reached far further than the writer's own immediate circle of friends, family, and colleagues.