Donor Stewardship 101: Five Things to Keep Your Donors
Happy and Raise More Money
Remember the Cycle of Giving
Identify
Invest Inform
Involve
Impact
Stewardship and Donor Relations
• Stewardship is about gift management, including
processes such as acknowledgement, making sure
that the gift is used as intended, and ensuring donor
satisfaction with the giving experience.
• Donor Relations includes but is not just about
stewardship, it is about developing meaningful
deeper relationships with donors who might have
the capacity to be loyal or major or planned giving
donors.
Stewardship and Donor Relations
• Stewardship is something which you must do for all
donors.
• While donor relations is applicable to all donors it is
typically focused on a small group who have the
capacity to make larger or estate gifts.
Stewardship and Donor Relations
• Both are about impact
• “It’s Almost a Requirement Now to Tell Donors the
Impact of Their Gifts” Headline from the Chronicle
of Philanthropy, April 2, 2019.
How many of you are?
• Doing only acknowledgement?
• Are taking a donor-relations/stewardship
approach?
• Both?
Anyone want to share an example?
R U Using Best Practices?
• Sending letters how soon after a gift is received? ____ 48 hours
____ One Week
____ One month
• What are you doing to ensure that gifts are being used as intended?
____ Depositing funds into accounts use for specific expenditures
____ Gaining staff buy-in regarding use of designated funds
____ Developing gift agreements for endowed or similar funds
• Ensuring a gratifying giving experience?
____ Sending letters, making a call or visiting to say thank you.
____ Mailing an annual “impact report”.
____ Sharing beneficiary stories
Impact Story:
“Another Year in the Books”
Know Your Donors
Who are your donors? Age, stage, interests, etc.
Why do they care about the library?
Stewardship: 5 Things to Keep
Donors Happy
1. Recency
Acknowledge within
48 hours of gift receipt.
2. Frequency How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Showing Donors Some Love
Jerry Panas said
thank seven times.
Let’s count some ways 1. Letter
2. Handwritten note
3. Phone call
4. Social media shout out
5. Send a picture
6. Welcome package
7. Video
Keep this in mind. . .
. . .”She is not YOUR donor
. . . You are one of HER Charities!”
3. Focus
4. Give Meaningful Thanks “You might not realize it … but you actually DO have
something to give back to the donor that’s of great
probably inestimable – value for many of them … all those
at least with standard-issue psychological software and
hardware. Give them …
Your love.
Your respect.
Your admiration.”
Tom Ahern, Ahern Communications
Examples?
5. Impact
Tell the story
Tell the Story
Tell the Story!
About the difference that gifts make in the lives of those you serve
(and in the lives of donors as well!).
Key Points about Storytelling
1. Focus on a patron who has a
2. Problem and describe
3. How you help them solve the problem and
4. How gifts enabled you to do so.
Adapted from The Nonprofit Storytelling
Field Guide & Journal, Nonprofitstorytelling.com
Example: Juniata County Library
Donor Stewardship
and Your Board
Resources
• Association of Donor Relations Professionals, ADRP
• Intentional Stewardship: Bringing Donors to Their
Highest Level of Philanthropy, Julia Emlen
• Journal of Donor Relations and Stewardship
Thank You
Sophie W. Penney, Ph.D.
President
i5 Fundraising.com
sophie@i5fundraising
Brady Clemens
District Consultant
Central Pennsylvania District