Appreciation - Turning Gratitude into Partnership

Last month, we discussed the importance of showing gratitude and appreciation to our donors and volunteers during the holidays. We touched on topics like; setting up and reviewing your stewardship plan, improving data accuracy in your donor CRM, and the next steps to ensure your stewardship plan succeeds. Let’s take that one step further and jump into some of the ever important details.

I am hoping you are starting to see the first fruits of success from your end of year appeals. Let’s talk about how we turn that into long term thriving!

Stewardship is not one size fits all, the more intricate and customized your stewardship plans are the better reciprocation you will receive. Considering that most shops will most likely not have the budget to spend vast amounts of resources on completely individualized stewardship, it is important to start separating your donors into different categories. Once these categories are identified, you can use these as segments to build out your stewardship plan and checklist.

For example, the most common way to determine recognition is by your donor’s giving history. Are they classified as New Donors (Their first donation was this year), Major Donors (They have donated well above the average), Core Donors (They have supported you for multiple years), or something else?

As part of your review of donors at the end of the year, here are some questions to start asking:

• How did this donor engage your non-profit? (e.g. Peer to peer, social media, events, major gifts, tributes, program beneficiaries)

• How did they give? How much and often did they give? (e.g. Direct mail, online, one time vs. recurring donations)

• How receptive are they to learning more about your organization and receiving communications?

• Do you have any plans to further engage them about your cause?

It is extremely helpful to have a set of strong definitions here that your team can agree on and use to customize individual donor journeys.

Stewardship must also be an ongoing process for it to be effective and yield results. Your organization’s initial outreach to a new donor is more than just a thank you, it is setting the tone for the future relationship between the donor and your organization.

Using social media and surveys – you can engage new donors to understand why they gave to your organization, their motivation, how they would like to be recognized, and open more ways to communicate with them.

Who are your Donors?

Your donor categories can be used to create different donor profiles to help standardize your stewardship approaches. For example, a tribute donor may have given to your nonprofit due to the request of the deceased’s next of kin and may have little knowledge or interest in your cause. On the other hand, a table sponsor at your gala may have been secured because a board member spoke with the company’s CFO at a business meeting. Although they both should be thanked for their gift, the stewardship and donor journey would be very different. Statistically, the chances of this tribute donor giving another gift are quite low while the sponsor may have a lot of potential for an upgraded gift due to the relationship established via the Board Member on your behalf.

After setting out your categories above think about the type of profiles that best describe each. It can be useful to leverage any surveys you have completed in this step. Once you have generalized profiles, record them and keep this document top of mind whenever thinking about communication strategies. It will help you focus your efforts and tailor content.

Let’s Keep in Touch!

In the business world, most agree that it is cheaper to retain a loyal customer than it is to identify a new one. The same concept applies to the nonprofit sector – we just utilize gratitude to engage our donors.

Start off by creating a plan of touchpoints for each of your now complete donor profiles. A great target to start with is that you want to contact them after the first 30, 60, and 90 days since they first connected with you.

A thank you email, letter of acknowledgement, and a thank you call is a classic way to remind the donor of your appreciation of their generosity. These tools can be largely automated and while there is a cost in staff or volunteer time, they are an effective way to retain donors.

Now let’s talk tax receipts. A tax receipt is not what I would consider a true thank you. It is the end of the transaction. Most donors are not motivated by tax receipts to give, so it is up to you to engage the donor and find out their reasons for giving.

Once you have that reason, then you can continue to guide them through the donor cycle. Spending time showing them the impact and value their generous donations have provided to your cause.

Inviting Them Along for the Journey

Although showing appreciation is the key part of stewardship, the goal is to also bring them back to the giving stage of the donor cycle. Research shows that charitable activities encourages endorphins in the human brain to boost happiness. You can find out more about how creating conditions where helping people might feel good for the donor in this article from Harvard Business School: https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-giving-to-others-makes-us-happy.

We want to make donors feel happy about their gift. That means painting a clear picture of how their contributions make a difference in the lives of others. But be mindful of donor fatigue – there will come a time when a donor may no longer want to support your organization – and that’s okay. Account for this moment in your stewardship plan, keep them in the loop with updates and look for opportunities to connect with them again.

It is hard to calculate the most effective way to efficiently steward a donor and encourage them to give again. You can run reports and queries with your data to look for patterns. But at the end of the day, stewardship is about a genuine appreciation for moments of kindness – and a simple thank you goes a long way.

If you want help developing your stewardship plan and implementing the tech required for automated donor journeys, please reach out to us! We love having these types of discussions as they lead to a more generous and prosperous community.

If you would like us to tackle a topic or problem of interest to you, in future articles, please let us know here.

Sentinel Consulting is a consulting firm that focuses on helping non-profits strengthen their operational efficiency. We speak the same language as our clients because we were all fundraisers at some point in our careers.