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Everything Speaks. (I’m lookin’ at you, thank you notes.)

Shawna Hershfield
Communications Director

“Everything Speaks” is my favorite marketing philosophy. I read about it in an article about the Disney Corporation. At Disney, "Everything speaks" means that every Disney employee, from the guy in the Mickey suit to the janitor, is responsible for the positive experience of Disney's visitors.

In the donor stewardship-world, "Everything speaks" means that our donor remembers more than the stellar visit with a gift officer and program leader. Everything about his/her experience with our organization—from the overworked, uninformed line staff to the donor acknowledgement he/she gets for tax purposes—informs his/her opinion of how well we're addressing our nonprofit mission.

TEACHING MOMENT

I work for a large non-profit organization that’s in the quiet phase of a comprehensive campaign. In preparation, we’ve just hired a new staffer to take on our acknowledgements process. She’s a great writer, but has never worked in major gifts/planned giving. So, I’m helping her understand the important role of stewardship in the donor experience.

Like every organization, our acknowledgements process includes database drudgery and record keeping that will support our donors’ ability to claim their gift as a charitable deduction. “It’s more about making sure the donor has records he/she can use for tax purposes as it is giving them a sense that their money is well spent.”

“WHAT?!? Wait. That doesn’t make sense.” Witness my inside voice as I heard myself giving our new employee horrible framing for her important job. Let’s try that again.

THANK YOU NOTE FROM A MOVES MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE

The goal of stewardship is to enrich our donors’ experiences and support the evolution of their commitment. As stewardship writers, we hustle to get inspiring quotes for our annual reports. We write donor profiles for our campaign website that will help others see themselves in the community of donors we’re building. We obsess about pie charts and data so that it’s immediately accessible and demonstrates success.

When it all melds just right—mission, messaging, and relationships—passionate donors do a miraculous thing: They part with wealth they could just as easily given to any one of hundreds of thousands of other institutions.
To thank them, we send a form letter that hasn’t changed in a year and has all the warmth of, well, a form letter. Good thinking, strategists!

TURN IT AROUND

For some organizations, there are enough thank you notes to get through that personalizing every acknowledgement is impossible. For many organizations, the mission is broad enough that personalization becomes maddening. Developing a modular template that can be changed in phases creates structure for change. It works like this. Craft your letter with five tight paragraphs:

  1. Opening paragraph: One sentence. Include gift amount, any honors made, and application of donation. I’m assuming we all have this paragraph. Make it short.

  2. Second paragraph: Overview of the organization looking forward and back for the current year. This should be changed twice a year:

    1. December/January—“In 2009, we are proud of the victories made possible by donors like you, like … In 2010, we’re working to …"

    2. June/July—“The first half of this year has been … In the second half of the year, we’ll be focusing on …”

  3. Third paragraph: Specific, recent movement in the program your donor is supporting. It doesn’t need to be a giant victory, just movement: “Last week/month, our Dean welcomed leaders from NASA who were interested in learning how our nanotechnology team was working on …” Update this monthly.

  4. Fourth paragraph: One or two sentences that lays out what the program staff is planning next month. At my institution, each of our divisions has a full year of activities laid out on a spreadsheet. It isn’t detailed, and you’ll want to confirm that the program staff is on target with their goals. But, it gives your donor a real time experience of how their funds are being used.

  5. Fifth paragraph: “Thanks again. If you have questions or comments about our activities, I hope you’ll call <<their managing gift officer>> at <<phone number>>.”

Of course, you’ll want to hit the regular stewardship bases: The signature should be live. Gift officers or leadership should have an opportunity to edit the text and add a personal note.

REAL STEWARDSHIP

By giving your donor a specific, real update on the program he/she supports, you’ve encouraged him/her to call their gift officer. Even if they don’t, this kind of real information gives the gift officer a starting place for contacting them. Their script goes something like this:

“I wanted to follow up on the thank you note I sent you last week. What do you think of <<what we’re doing/what we did last month>>? Would you be interested in getting quarterly updates on what we’re doing with your donation?”

Those quarterly updates are another stewardship opportunity.

If you’d like John Brown Limited to help you craft marketing materials that steward your donors well, give us a call.  We’re here to help.


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