Jonathan Poisner Strategic Consulting

They gave!  Now what?

You want donors to have an ongoing, steadily deepening relationship with both you and the organization.

So you should steward that relationship.  Hence, donor stewardship.

Stewardship starts with the thank you

It may be obvious, but bears emphasis: stewarding the relationship starts with a genuine thank you.

For anyone who’s taken the time to meet with you, that means a handwritten thank you.  Even for major gifts that otherwise come in, a handwritten thank you is advisable.

The alternative: a phone call thank you when the gift comes in.

Either way, this is an opportunity to show genuine appreciation separate from the formal letter the donor should receive thanking them and including any information appropriate for tax purposes.

Stewardship after the thank you

Good stewardship encompasses three primary goals:

• To strengthen the personal relationship between the prospect and most likely next solicitor,
• To educate the prospect about the work you do and its importance, and
• To help the donor see themselves as part of a community of like-minded supporters.

In designing any stewardship activity, you should always be able to point to at least one of those three goals being achieved or else you should rethink whether it’s worthwhile.

Stewardship Tactics to Consider

What activities accomplish these purposes?

• Sending them information is always a good place to start.  Personalized emails or general email updates can help.  Many organizations still mail major doors an Annual Report or similar document demonstrating the organization’s impact.  It may be a personalized letter once or twice a year aimed at organizational “insiders.”
• Creating a branded program to recognize and generate community among major donors. For example, a “Leadership Circle” or “Presidents Council.”  A donor belongs to this when they give annually at greater than whatever dollar figure is your threshold.  Those within the program should ideally receive at least a couple communications per year specifically aimed at them.
• Whether or not you have a branded program, major donors should ideally be given one or two opportunities a year to attend a non-fundraising event. The point of these events is to give them opportunities to engage with leadership, community leaders, and each other.  If they attend these events, it’s important to use the opportunity to get to know them and learn about what motivates them, rather than just talking “to” them.
• Ask for advice. This can be online, in-person as part of small listening sessions, or in a more formal setting like strategic or program planning.
• Ask them to volunteer. This could be basic volunteering, serving on a committee or task force, or for those most engaged, service on the board.
• Give them recognition.  This could be as simple as including their name(s) in an Annual Report along with all similar donors.  Or it could be specific to them, such as giving them an award (hopefully for things they’ve done beyond just their donations).
• Provide them a personal, one-on-one opportunity to catch up over coffee, lunch, or even on the phone. As with cultivation, whenever you are engaged one-on-one, use it for an opportunity to ask them questions about why they’re interested, what motivates their support, what specific aspects of your work they find most appealing, etc.
• Send them personalized emails if/when you read about them in the press or come across an article that you feel they would be particularly interested in. (If they have a somewhat unique name, set up a Google news alert to automatically email you if they are mentioned in the news).

In the end, there will almost always be more good stewardship ideas than you have time to do, so it’s important to identify tiers of donors.  Some will get basic stewardship.  Others will get much more personalized stewardship.  When I was an Executive Director, we planned out personalized stewardship for our top 30 donors and all other major donors were folded into a general stewardship plan.  What’s appropriate for your organization will depend on the level of development staff time that is being devoted to major donor fundraising, which in turn should be related to what you can reasonably expect to raise from major donor prospects over time.

If you have additional creative ideas for donor stewardship, please do share them with me!

When people say they are “afraid” of making fundraising asks one-on-one with a prospective donor, there are many facets to that fear.

One is the age-old fear of rejection.  Everyone fears rejection to some degree.  We fear it in our personal lives when we ask people to do something or in our professional lives.

Even the most magnificent major donor fundraiser will feel rejection.  Indeed, if they don’t sometimes receive a “no,” it undoubtedly means they aren’t asking enough people to donate.

There’s no magic solution to this challenge.

But there are some mental techniques that have helped other fundraisers get past this fear.

For one, we can recalibrate in our minds what we mean by success.  Don’t judge success by school standards (90% = an A, 80% = a B, etc.).  Judge yourselves by major donor fundraiser standards (anything better than 50% yes is pretty darn good).

Another tool is to recognize that most “no’s” are really “yes” to something else.  You may be “selling” hamburgers while they want hot dogs.  You may be selling environmental protection while they want to feed the hungry.  In other words, they may have other nonprofits or campaigns they wish to prioritize.  Or, in other cases, really valid personal needs that they need to prioritize.  It will be an exceptionally rare circumstance where someone will say “no” to you while saying they’re going to invest their dollars in something you actively oppose.

Another thing to always bear in mind is that many “no’s” are actually “not now.” They may have already given away all they can during the period in time, but perhaps you’ve set them up for a big gift next year.  Your success is having primed the pump for a future ask that will succeed.

And even beyond future gifts, you can learn to recognize the many other positive outcomes that can come out of a relationship-focused donor meeting even if no gift materializes.  They can volunteer.  They may have offered ideas you like for how the organization can do something differently.  You may learn about something else happening in the community.  You may get leads or referrals to other donor prospects.  I’ve experienced each of these outcomes and by focusing on the positive, the “sting” of rejection quickly faded.

In the end, all the mental tricks in the world won’t fully eliminate the momentary feeling that something is awry when people tell us “no.”  It’s still part of our human nature.  But by thinking consciously about it, successful major donor fundraisers can quickly go from “fear” of rejection to embracing the good that comes out of any one-on-one donor meeting.

If you have other techniques you have used to get past your own fear of fundraising, please let me know!