The newsletter can be mailed or e-mailed. If your postage budget is small, go with e-mail and accept the fact that the aopen ratea probably wonat be too high. That is not to say it is not worth the trouble. You just need realistic expectations. There will be a sufficient number of donors who do take the time to read the newsletter in depth for you to spend time making it a quality product.
In the newsletter you send at the end of your year, whether itas your fiscal or calendar year, include two key things in the summary of your fundraising efforts. The first is a report about your annual goals versus actual results. Believe it or not, donors are interested in knowing if the goals that you reported at the beginning of your fiscal year were met. You will want to include the following data: Dollars raised If applicable, a breakdown of dollars raised by funding priority/category Number of gifts Percentage increase (or decrease) in dollars raised and number of gifts Total dollars raised from all gifts under $100a"or $50. The point is to show that small contributions add up.
The other thing that you will want to include with your annual report is the donor roll. The donor roll, as the name implies, is an alphabetical listing of all your donors. You shouldnat include the amounts that people give. What you can do is star or highlight people who have given above a certain threshold, with a legend at the end of the donor roll. In addition to leadership-level giving, you also want to highlight planned givers, volunteers, anda"most importantlya"your consistent givers.
Giving Societies.
Let me detour for a minute to talk about agiving societiesa or agiving levelsaa"or whatever you end up using for terminology with your organization. Giving societies exist for sight-raising and sight-setting, as well as giving you a good stewardship opportunity. In previous chapters, Iave referred to the playbill that you get at a performance, where you have platinum, gold, silver, and bronze patrons. These are giving levels. You can get more creative than this, to make it more directly relevant or specific to your organization. For example, a nonprofit that does work to improve literacy in urban schools could have giving levels such as the following: $0a"$100: Pupil $100a"$250: Cla.s.s Representative $250a"$500: Valedictorian $500a"$1,000: Teacher $1,000a"$2,500: Vice Princ.i.p.al $2,500a"$5,000: Princ.i.p.al $5,000+: Superintendent Your two main giving societies should be leadership annual givers and your consistent givers. Leadership annual giving levels will depend partly on the composition of your current donor pool. Itas not an exact science. You want the level to be a reach for your annual donors, but an attainable one. The other thing to note is that, over time, the leadership annual giving levels can change, especially as you gain traction with your existent donor base.
If you really are at a loss as to where to start, an arbitrary but good enough dividing line for leadership giving and simple annual giving is $1,000. A four-figure gift does confer a certain amount of seriousness, especially when a nonprofit is just beginning to systematize its fundraising operations.3 Of course, once you establish this line in the sand, it should be a goal of your frontline fundraisers to get out and encourage as many donors to give at the leadership level. This will, in turn, create a need for your stewardship employees to engage this new crop of leadership donors.
There is tension among the fundraising community as to whether the leadership givers or your consistent givers are more important in terms of your investment of time and resources. I think both deserve attention, but if push comes to shove and you have to spend time on one more than the other, the stewardship office should spend time creatively engaging the consistent donors as opposed to the leadership donors. Chances are, in a small- to medium-sized development shop, the leadership donors should be on the radar of your front-line fundraisers. And, if you follow the advice I gave above, front-line fundraisers will be writing personal thank-you notes to that demographic as well.
One reason for this stance is that, oftentimes, your leadership annual givers are also consistent givers. To use a very loose a.n.a.logy (and to dust off your high school geometry), all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. I say loose because sometimes leadership donors are one-offs that give a bunch of money and then never give again. But, Iam guessing that if you take a look at your data, the majority of folks that are giving at whatever you have established as your leadership annual giving level will have already been consistent donors to your organization: hence, my reasoning behind urging you to spend time developing a systematic stewardship program for consistent donors at the expense of leadership donors in the event that you have to choose one.4 __________.
3 One thing to keep in mind: If someone is giving you $500 unsolicited (i.e. without personalized attention from your organization), chances are they can give $750 or $1,000 if asked. If someone is giving you $1,000 unsolicited, they can probably give you twice that if you spend some time with them.
One final justification for this opinion is that the two societies donat have to be exclusive for a majority of your stewardship activities.
With that in mind, in the following paragraphs on the type of substance you want to provide for each giving society, understand that you often duplicate what you are doing for one of them without having to fear repercussions.
Once youave established a giving society, you need to communicate the heck out of it to get donor buy-in. This can be a Herculean task, but itas worth your time. It isnat enough just to create a society on paper. You have to give it life, celebrate it liberallya"within budget, of course.
Upon the creation of the giving society, you need to mail or e-mail everyone in that society. This can be done either as a special appeal or just as a simple congratulatory note, welcoming them to the society. When generating automatic thank-yous for gift receipts, you might consider having a leadership level template and a consistent donor template. Again, itas up to you which trumps which, but for the thank-you note, it would be wiser to celebrate the consistent donors first and the leadership donors second if push comes to shove.
Do you need to provide gifts in return? There is something to be said for kitsch or trinkets that boast your organizationas name. Donat go overboard and spend a ton of money on this, but you do want to send something either to your consistent or leadership donors or both. The reason is as much to thank them with a token item as it is to remain present in their daily life. You want to remain on their mind, so you need to make it into their home beyond the solicitation letter, the solicitation phone call, or the solicitation e-mail. And you want to do so with greater frequency than a quarterly or annual newsletter.
__________.
4 I am making this argument for stewardship within level one. I do not want to give the impression that you can skimp on your level-two and level-three stewardship for your mid-range and top donors.
Think about what you use in your daily life and figure out how to send such a product to either or both of these societies. Examples are as follows: Pens Notepads or self-adhesive notes Paperweights or magnets Return address labels Bookmarks Key chains or carabiners 12-month wall calendars with photos of your organization, the people helped, etc. (one of the best ideas, in my opinion) You can tailor your mementos to parallel your organizationas mission. If youare representing an environmental nonprofit, for example, sending paper notepads might not make too much sense unless you prominently display that itas all-recycled material. If youare representing an organization that focuses on workersa rights and labor union advocacy in the US, you might not want to send something thatas manufactured overseas. In other words, make sure that the mementos align with the mission. Believe me, things like this will not go unnoticed. And then, instead of increasing the donoras appreciation of the work that you do, you are undermining their trust and confidence in your inst.i.tution, and they also might begin to wonder if the money they are giving is being wisely spent.
Level-Two Stewardship: Mid-Range Donors.
Now, let me focus on the medium-range donors. Note that these mid-range donors should also be receiving level-one stewardship for their gifts, since they will be part of your aleadershipa annual giving society if you create one (and are likely consistent givers already, too).
These are the folks that arenat the top of the top (your top 20 percent), but are well above the minimum threshold to be considered leadership annual donors. They have an ongoing relationship with your development staff. They have established philanthropic legacies at your inst.i.tution, and it is possible to construct a narrative around the impact of their giving.
Itas worth repeating that this group, through proper cultivation and stewardship, is also your future top of the pyramid.
Treat this strata of donors in a special manner, but in such a way that you can still standardize the process. You should create customizable templates of longer, narrative reporting, along with some data on the program or funding area supported (in addition to level-one stewardship, which includes a gift acknowledgement letter, your organizationas newsletter, etc.). For example, if youare a civil liberties group, you should have a report prepared on recent cases that you have been able to fight thanks to special funding. If youare an environmental group, report on improvements to your expanded urban outreach program since youave started raising money from targeted individuals.
There should also be a lengthier thank-you note written by someone directly impacted by the funding (i.e. not generated by an employee of your department). If youare working for an educational nonprofit, for example, ask a current student whoas benefited from a program funded by a donor to write a note of thanks for publication. If youare stewarding a gift for a battered womenas shelter, have someone whoas had the experience of living there write the note.
While you should ask these folks who are not directly employed by you, but are directly affected from the work of your organization to write the letter, you need to review the letter for content before mailing it out. Whereas your stewardship employees are ghost writing for your VP and ED, and your frontline fundraisers are writing their own thank-you notes and therefore will stay on point, asking a beneficiary of your nonprofitas work can present certain challenges. When you ask a beneficiary of your organizationas work to pen a thank-you note, you run the risk of their tone being too loose or colloquial, or their writing skills being nothing less than abominable. You want to edit not just for grammar and syntax but also for content. You want to maintain control of the message. This might involve considering more than one thank-you letter candidate or coaching the person writing the note, taking the time to explain why they are being ask to write a note and who it is that they are thanking. I have seen examples that are perfect as is, complete disasters, and everything in between. I recently saw an example of a thank-you note written by a scholarship recipient that likened his scholarship to receiving a pet for his birthday. We had to ask him to rewrite the note.
Your office needs to have the final say in how you communicate your grat.i.tude. Itas always a bit delicate when you have to edit something like a thank-you note or throw it out all together, but for the purpose of stewarding a medium-level donor, itas worth it.
The thank-you notes themselves can afford to be a bit lengthier than your standard half sheet or notecard.
The thank-you note should be printed on your organizationas letterhead and include a photograph of whoever is authoring the note. If it isnat mentioned in the note, include a short profile on the author. This will ensure that the impact of the giving is made apparent.
Any fund that is named after or by a donor should generate a report.5 If the original donor of a particular fund is deceased, it makes sense to track down the next of kin. Youall be surprised at how much good reporting can do for the families of donors. Theyall at the very least appreciate that you took the time to report on the donoras philanthropic legacy at your inst.i.tution, anda"every so oftena"youall find the family decides to continue supporting that fund to honor the legacy left behind. Itas another one of those moments where you have to embrace the fact that it might feel awkward at first to be sending a stewardship report and thank-you note to someone who hasnat been directly involved with your organization yet.
The standardized report should include both quant.i.tative and qualitative data of the impact that that donoras philanthropy has had on the program that he or she is supporting. If youare strapped for time and resources, you can zoom out and give a broader overview of the impact of all philanthropy on that particular funding area. However, I would recommend taking the time to customize reports for each donor.
Again, you do need to take some extra time to steward your medium-range donors. They will, after all, be your future top donors and trustees, so invest in the stewardship.
The reporting that you compile for this level of gift range gives vibrancy and color to the gifts made by these donors; it validates both their generosity and your organizationas need for their support. Good stewardship is a subtle resolicitation; in each of these reports is the implied request for continued support.
Level-Three Stewardship: Megadonors.
Individually tailored stewardship should exist at the highest giving levels. Again, your top 20 percent should get that special treatment. If you have the bandwidth to expand that to your top third, by all means do so.
Before I dive into this section, I have a caveat: this level of stewardship, given your limited resources, especially at the outset of your quest to professionalize your development shop, might not be needed in the beginning stages of your work.
__________.
5 I say aaftera or abya a donor because donors often choose to have a fund named after someone other than themselves. Granted, many donors do choose to have funds or programs or buildings named after themselves, but sometimes they want to honor a family member, teacher, coach, or someone else important in their life. Sometimes, they donat want the fund, program, or building named after them so as to avoid other nonprofits sniffing them out!
This isnat meant to discourage you. It is my sincere hope that you will eventually have to steward megadonors. I just want to paint a realistic picture, and I donat want you to invest your limited time and limited resources creating customized stewardship projects when level-two stewardship would suffice.
Of course, there is no hard-and-fast rule for distinguishing a megadonor from a mid-range donor. One organizationas mid-range donor is anotheras chief patron. But the level of stewardship that I am about to describe should apply to a very special cla.s.s of donors. Donat sell yourself short and strain your finite resources by throwing yourself into this level of stewardship until you have identified, a.s.sessed, cultivated, and solicited a new cla.s.s of gifts for your organization. This level of stewardship should be something that you should desire needing even if currently you donat need it.
The approach to this kind of stewardship will require a creative mind. You need a stewardship writer who can give serious thought as to how a given donor would most appreciate being thanked. This will require coordination with the gift officer who closed the solicitation.
This is a word of advice to gift officers, the front-line fundraisers, since you are the ones most likely to be dealing with the donors themselves: when having conversations with your prospects, be sure to listen for cues on how they have been thanked by other organizations. What did the donor like or not like? Iave received comments from prospects that say that my office does a far better job than the other stewardship reports theyave received. Of course, Iave received comments going the other way, too. Ask them what about a certain report made them happy, made them feel good. If they have received stewardship communications from your organization before as a medium-range donor (or even basic-level donor), what have they liked? What have they felt lacking? Ask these questions to help your stewardship writers later on.
Tune your ear for what makes them feel warm and fuzzy. Sometimes, itas not a letter or glossy report at all that makes the donor happy. Sometimes, itas viewing firsthand the impact of their work. This could involve a visit to your office to meet a student that your after-school programming has helped or meeting the residents of your homeless shelter. It could involve a coordinated site visit to a particular nature preserve that the donoras gifts have helped to conserve. It could involve an invitation to your winter concert if youare a musical organization.
But a solid report is a good base line, so letas focus on that for a moment. Again, your stewardship writer will need to think beyond the simple 8.5 by 11-inch double-sided report and thank-you note and really imagine a longer narrative. Iam talking either multi-media or booklet form. Youall want to interview multiple parties who have benefited from the gifts of this donor and compile a story of positive change and att.i.tude. Take photos, record the interviews, get written testimonies, and compile it all, either in color print or on a dedicated web page.
Itas labor intensive, and yes, only thanks one person or family, but it is well worth the effort. Itas an investment in the resolicitation.
At the highest levels of stewardship, you have to bear in mind that itas not enough to produce a very glossy report that youare very proud of if the donor doesnat appreciate it. It is always a good idea to check in with the donor not just to verify receipt of the report (which, if sent by mail, is sometimes a problem), but also to garner their opinion on it. Often enough, the reviews come back positive, but donat just a.s.sume that. Reach out to the donor a month after youave sent the report and ask them what they thought about it.
While your shop will have a standard operating procedure for constructing stewardship reports, and it will fit most of your donors, it wonat fit all of them. And, it is worth your time to listen and alter your reporting accordingly in those instances. Donors will appreciate the extra effort, and it makes that next gift more likely.
Some donors will want more or less quant.i.tative data, and some will prefer a more narrative form of stewardship communication. Others will want data on the broader program theyare supporting. Others still will want very specific data on their fund beyond the standard quant.i.tative information (such as the value of a named fund), including specific breakdowns of how the funds availed from the gift were allocated. While it can be a headache and involve some getting into the weeds with your budget office, give the donor what she wants. Sheas already given you a substantial amount of money. The least you can do is get on the phone with your budget office to be able to report back to the donor how the money was spent.
The stewardship report should come with a cover letter from your organizationas executive director, president, or equivalent, thanking her for her giving, inviting her to call should there be any questions or concerns, and encouraging her to stop by your offices. There should also be a broader statement about the importance of philanthropy and how this particular donor sets the example for others to follow.6 __________.
6 It might be implicit, but letas make it explicit: you can repurpose this customized stewardship as a way to inspire your donors receiving level-two stewardship when the time is right. Itas a way of saying, softly, to the mid-range donor, aSee what wead really like you to doa?
Events: Parties with a Purpose.
Events are important. Events are, by the nature of the time, money, and labor cost, investments, but I would argue that they are worth it. They build good will and get a lot of people dedicated to a similar goal in the same room. They are a great way to engage your donors, especially those who you canat touch individually with personal visits, but who should nonetheless be made to feel special.
Events should be approached strategically; they shouldnat just be held for the sake of having them. Each event needs to have a purpose and a goal. Events should be held both at your offices (if s.p.a.ce allows) and off-site. Iam going to divide this section by the considerations you need to take into account.
Scope.
The first question you need to ask yourself when planning an event is, how big you want it to be? Do you want the event to be an all-come event, in which your entire donor base (or entire donor base in a certain region) is invited to come? Or, do you want the event to be limited to a certain number of people? If the latter, do you want the event to be limited to a certain giving strata? Is this a social gathering, or will there be an ask? Is the ask hard or soft? Who is making that ask: the executive director, the director of development, a board member, or any other key volunteer? Who from your organization is staffing the event, or is it completely volunteer driven? Will there be remarks made and by whom? What will be the content of those remarks, and who is in charge of preparing them?
Paying for It.
If yours is a locally based organization, with your board and a number of your high-level donors in the area, you should consider asking leading donors to underwrite the cost of the event. This is a good idea for more than one reason. The simplest is that it doesnat have to come out of your budget. Another reason is that it is actually a cultivational opportunity for the prospect underwriting that event. They get to feel good about helping your cause, and you get to highlight them at the event by thanking them for their generosity. You can also highlight them before the event, on the invitation, saying that the event has been made possible thanks to their support.
Of course, this puts pressure on your organization to pull off a really solid, well-attended event. But if you do pull it off, you can consider that a cultivation step, even though itas already technically a gift. The reason you can count it as cultivation is that it makes the donor feel really good about collaborating with your office, and he or she can bask in the general bonhomie of the event itself. It also provides you ample opportunity to follow up with the prospect and keep them engaged at the personal level.
You shouldnat be afraid about this kind of solicitation. The first time I asked one of my prospects to underwrite the costs of an event in one of the cities I covered, I had clearly come across as nervous. I gave her the reason for the event, justified it, talked about its importance, and finally, slipped it in under my breath that I was hoping she might consider funding the event. To which she said, aJeff, I knew you were going to ask me, I was wondering what took you so **** long.a Major and megadonors understand that putting on an event is both important and expensive, and that your organization doesnat have a ton of cash lying around.
Planning.
Where is the event to take place? Your office? A prospectas office s.p.a.ce? A prospectas home? The location will influence the time of day you should have the event. The time of day that you have the event will affect who can and cannot attend. Do you want a morning breakfast downtown at someoneas office? A c.o.c.ktail hour in the city? A dinner in the suburbs? Will invitations go out via hard copy or e-mail? How many follow-up reminders will you be sending? Who in your office is responsible for taking RSVPs? You need to be strategic about these kind of decisions; again, tailor these answers such that they address the purpose and goals of the event.
Follow Up.
Follow-up to events is very important and very easy to forget. Events are a good way to track a donoras interest in your organization, so be sure to have a record of who attended the event (with a sign in sheet) and have that attendance list entered into your database.
If a gift officer staffed the event, he can use the event as a hook when reaching out to a prospect.
More systematically, if the event is staffed by the executive director or another high-level staff member, a thank-you note should go out (e-mail is okay), thanking all attendees for coming and expressing the hope that they enjoyed the event. If possible, the note should reference specific content that came up either in the prepared remarks or in the Q&A.
If the event was tailored to high-end donors with a relatively small invitation list, it makes sense also to send a note to folks who could not attend with a brief note on what was covered. If appropriate, send materials that were distributed at the event.
If there was an ask at the event, there should certainly be a follow-up solicitation coming from whoever made the ask.
The point is, youave put in the work prepping the event, so you donat want to drop the ball by not continuing to engage the attendees once theyave returned home. The importance of follow up is a theme to which weall return in subsequent chapters: both its importance and the ease with which we do a sub-par job of it.
So thatas stewardship: saying thanks and throwing parties! I hope that if nothing else, I have driven home the importance of the work of the stewardship department, and shown just how crucial good stewardship is to maintaining good relationships with your current donors and also to open the door for resolicitation. Whether itas a level-one thank you note thatas automatically generated and mailed or a high-touch report customized for a million-dollar gift, you need to give some serious thought and attention to your stewardship program. You need to be able to keep your donors connected to your inst.i.tution through not-strictly-monetary ways; events and thank-yous are a solid first step. Remember: good stewardship cements the relationship, completes the gift cycle, and begins it anew.
Letas now turn our attention to travel and the face-to-face visit.
Face Time.
Visit Planning, Face-to-Face Contact, and the Dreaded (but Essential!) Follow Up.
And so we get to the face-to-face conversation and travel. When I say travel, I specifically mean planning a trip of a day or a number of days in which you are out on the road visiting with donors face to face. The scope and range of your travel will be based on the location of your donors. Whether youare traveling across the country or across town, the principles of how to plan a trip, how to set up appointments, what to cover, and so on will remain the same. Face-to-face visits are an essential part of your fundraising operation. While it might initially appear not to make sense to spend a full day (or week) away from the office, and while it might seem to be an inefficient use of your time to spend up to an hour with only one or two individuals, you can rest a.s.sured knowing that in-person contact will be one of the keys to your success.
Face-to-face conversations allow for many things that less-direct methods of donor contact do not. It is the best shot you can get at having a donoras undivided attention for a given period of time. It allows you to engage the donor in an in-depth, detailed conversation about the work that your organization is doing, and it allows them to ask questions and/or voice opinions that they might not take the time to do over phone or through e-mail. It also makes them a much more likely future donor, as well as someone who will be more likely to increase their giving in the future, when asked.