Stewardship With Heart: Creative Ways to Show Donors You Care

What do you get when you add a stewardship crisis, two expert fundraisers, and a whole bunch of Valentine’s Day puns? RNL’s February webinar, of course! Earlier this year, RNL hosted an hour-long conversation featuring Miranda Fagley and Becca Widmer, where they unpacked their strategies for creating meaningful moments through stewardship.

A tough heart-to-heart: The current state of the world

With geopolitical conflict running rampant, a rocky economic state, and a rapidly shifting domestic political landscape, it’s no wonder donors are wary of the future. During this tough heart-to-heart, we unpacked the various factors that might make donors hesitate before opening their wallets in 2025, and took a deep-dive into how the state of the world is impacting our donors, and therefore impacting the state of philanthropy as we know it. From generational differences and the more dollars/fewer donors trend we have all experiences to evolving donor expectations, advancement leaders are facing unprecedented challenges as the goal-line seems to move every year.

The heart of it all: A look at the donor data

Jumping into the “heart” of our conversation, we went straight to the source—donor expectations gleaned from RNL’s 2025 National Alumni Survey. We noticed a few alarming trends when comparing this donor expectation data with the 2024 Giving USA report, which analyzed giving trends when accounting for inflation across our sector. Total giving declined by 2.1% when adjusting for inflation and, while higher education saw a 6.7% increase in overall giving, even when accounting for inflation, donor numbers across the board were down. There is also an obvious mismatch between donor expectations and reality, as seen in our comparison of RNL’s 2024 Advancement Leaders Speak report with the 2025 National Alumni Survey. Take, for instance, the fact that 66% of donors indicated that understanding the impact of their giving is important to them. This becomes an issue when 43% of advancement leaders reported that their shops have difficulty communicating the impact of specific funds. Storytelling is the name of the game, and it is becoming clear that communicating impact is a key piece of the donor acquisition and retention puzzle.

The broken hearts club: Under-stewarded donors

Many advancement shops are unknowingly leaving a trail of broken-hearted donors in the wake of annual campaigns. Why is thoughtful stewardship important?

1. Connecting donors to your mission and educating them on the impact of their giving is crucial to keeping donors interested in your priorities.
2. Telling your story through a “thank you” is a great way to differentiate your cause and your need in comparison to other organizations in this increasingly noisy world.
3. The simple act of reminding donors of your impact is a great way to retain donors and move them through your pipeline. The more you can encourage donors to see themselves in your mission and important work, the more likely you are to get them onboard as true donor-partners.

On the flip-side, we unpacked that can happen if you don’t steward your donors well, including a shrinking pipeline, excessive spending when you do decide to attempt to reacquire them, and the loss of both short- and long-term revenue. Don’t be a heartbreaker!

Uncovering donor love languages: Do you know your donors?

Words of affirmation. Quality time. Acts of service. These are just a few love languages from Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages. Did you know donors have love languages too? It’s our job as mission-centric, donor-focused fundraisers to learn those love languages and lean into them through stewardship, relationship-building, and even solicitation.

In our exploration of donor love languages, we unpacked the first level- generational differences. Hearts are broken generationally when we do not pay attention to context and communicated need. While not always “the answer,” generational segmentation and a slight shift of message can be a simple way to get to the “heart” of what a majority of your donors want and need from your stewardship outreach. And, as we continue to experience generational shifts and the great wealth transfer, leaning into generational values will become even more important to attracting and retaining donors.

Another layer of love language exploration comes from you going straight to the source- your individual donors and what their giving history can tell you. We looked at one of RNL’s solutions for further discovering donor love languages, the RNL360, which offers an opportunity to dive into your database. By illustrating historic AND recent trends in giving and interaction, the RNL360 can provide you with a better understanding of giving and retention by donor type, an analysis of consistency and efficacy of your various giving channels (hello, smart investment in tools and campaigns!), and can help establish baseline metrics which can inform goal setting and future fundraising and engagement targets.

We can theorize all day about what donor expectations are, but the purest source of truth is looking at donor data and asking donors to tell you what they want and need. That’s where RNL’s Market Research solution comes into play. A complementary component of the RNL360, this additional solution allows you to hear directly from your donors by way of a private, but not anonymous, survey administered by RNL, where you can learn more about your donors’ philanthropic priorities, communication preferences, and sense of connectedness.

When it comes to effective stewardship and solicitation, knowledge is power.

Engagement strategies with heart: RNL experts share their takes

Our two experts shared their take on stewardship and engagement with heart, with overlapping themes of getting personal, telling your story, and taking the time to really listen to what donors are telling you they want to hear from you.

Miranda’s take

1. Get specific: steward in ways only YOU can.
2. “Single” out your society members with a special ‘thank you.’
3. Take the time to survey your donors- understand what you THINK will resonate and get feedback/confirmation from them.

Becca’s take

1. Put gratitude on repeat.
2. Turn generosity to belonging.
3. Keep impact front and center.
4. Asking is omnichannel, so thanking should be too.

Our main takeaways?

1. Consider the landscape: context is everything
2. Take a hard look at donor data:
3. Understand the “why” behind stewarding annual donors: Tell. Your. Story.
4. Get to know your donors’ love languages: ask your donors directly
5. Steward in ways only YOU can: don’t be afraid to get a little wacky

Want to learn more about the RNL360 and Market Research to uncover your donor love languages and steward more thoughtfully? Connect with an RNL fundraising expert today!