Have You Thanked Your Donors Today?

Yesterday, you heard about the importance of stewardship and cultivation from Chris Hughes. Today, I wanted to share a very recent stewardship event I participated in that utilized the campus community to thank donors in a way no other nonprofit can.

At last week’s Thank a Donor Days (THAD) at Ball State University, the advancement team involved hundreds of students, faculty and staff in the effort to show gratitude to their loyal supporters.

If you take a look at their Flickr site, you’ll see that the event included everything from academic leadership to the school mascot. This incredible effort also produced over 630 handwritten notes for donors written by students. Involving your entire campus or organization in the stewardship effort not only thanks donors, it:

• Engages students (the next generation of donors) to show that philanthropy is a part of the lifetime relationship with your institution.
• Reminds leadership that donor support is crucial to your mission in a public way.
• Raises the profile of philanthropy on your campus.

It’s great to see that events like THAD at Ball State are becoming more common, and there is a big rise in student philanthropy programs that engage students directly with donors.

As research efforts like the Burk Donor Survey have shown, your stewardship efforts directly affects the emotional ties that donors have to your cause and greatly impacts donor loyalty. If you don’t have a year-round stewardship plan that involves your entire institution, you should create one right now.

Along with these efforts, don’t forget that tools like calls and broadcast voicemail allow for a very powerful “thanks” to donors in the voice of those they have helped support. Check out our Stewardship White Paper for some other great ideas on how to show gratitude to your donors in powerful ways.