By Anonymous, with introduction and closing comments from Murray Landa 

Never underestimate the power of strong donor stewardship. Unfortunately, some charities don’t emphasize it enough or execute it well. As a result, they miss out on wonderful opportunities for increased donor satisfaction and support for the cause.

People who are new to an organization, or to fundraising, rightly want to know the best ways to hit the ground running when starting a new job.

Here’s one key tip: rather than scouring the earth for new donors, start by reaching out to those who are right under your nose.

A fellow fundraiser who did just that has an interesting story to tell, with lessons for all of us. Read on! 

“My former boss believed that stewardship was like a marriage. As fundraisers we focus so much on the proposal and wedding that we forget our promise to work just as carefully on the relationship. He would start the donor cycle with stewardship rather than letting the relationship end there and stagnate. It was much easier to engage existing donors than it was to convince new ones to make their first gift.

When I left that organization, I joined a school with a underdeveloped major gifts program. Many donors hadn’t been upgraded from the annual giving level, though their giving histories indicated deep connection to the organization, concern about the projects, and some of them had signals for capacity. I also found relationships that had lagged: donors hadn’t received updates in years and no one had asked them what they expected from the relationship. The school also had a practice of sending updates only to individuals who established the funds, even though there were key donors to those same funds whose gifts had exceeded the initial donors’ amounts.

After running a report on all donors to our department, a particular donor caught my attention. He had made gifts for nearly a decade to an endowed student award, and he had noted to our annual giving team that he was ready to double his annual contribution. He had recently contacted alumni relations over an invitation to an event to which he had wanted to attend, but protested the required dress code. Within the message, he fondly described his time at the school, but his tone about the dress code frightened away alumni staff. Beneath the complaint, he seemed to have a story to tell, so I wrote to him.

I prepared a stewardship report with letters from student recipients and brought it to him. He had been making gifts to a fund named in memory of a former student who had passed away, and I asked him how he had known its namesake. He told me that he didn’t. He had called his former department many years ago wanting to make a general gift, and someone suggested this fund to him. I told him that his gifts made up 75% of the fund’s current value and that the endowment had exceeded its initial goal. He now had the opportunity to create another award and could use it to honour someone close to him.

He established a new fund in memory of his mother, and over the next year, contributed half of its funding goal. He was set to pledge the remainder when he suddenly stopped replying to messages. A month later, his sister, who lived in another province, sent an email message with news that he had passed away. She noted that he had mentioned the fund to family members over the past year, and they were surprised at his dedication to it. She and her husband wanted to know if there were commitments that they needed to fulfill. We set up a discussion by Skype for later in the week.

Her brother had been reviewing terms of reference for the award and a pledge when he passed, and the endowment was only half-fulfilled. I told her there were some decisions to make, and if she wanted to take away those questions, I could wait until she and her husband had a chance to take care of their own grief and settle her brother’s estate. They had not had a previous relationship with the school and had never worked directly with a fundraiser, so we discussed how the relationship might look before we made any decisions on the fund. I suggested that they only consider going forward if they felt completely comfortable and if the process of resolving the fund would be something meaningful to them. If they decided not to complete the endowment, we could then look at options to distribute the fund’s current balance in support of students in her brother’s former department.

They called me back within a few weeks. They had decided to go forward with a pledge to the fund. We discussed the school, its history, and its vision, and I sent them a copy of a book that was compiled for the school’s anniversary. We noted alignments in their values and the school’s culture. They then asked for information on making a planned gift. Over our next several conversations, we continued to work on terms of reference for the fund, and during those discussions, the donors asked about creating an additional award.

Had I not learned the lesson to begin with stewardship, I might not have come across the original donor. And if I hadn’t asked him how he wished the relationship to work, we might not have had one at all. His sister and brother-in-law have become trusted partners to our organization in a province where we have few connections. For them, their partnership helps to complete several threads of their family’s narrative: developing a legacy award that honours their brother and mother; developing another one that honours their own interests; and finding a new partner to direct their energies and philanthropy towards their values for higher education, social justice, and nurturing future generations.”

What lessons can we learn from this? Here are some noteworthy items:

1. Sometimes, a complaint can lead to good things. Deal with complaints head on;

2. Did you notice the number of positive spinoffs from the fundraiser’s efforts to reach out and steward well? How many gifts and gift inquiries do you see?

3. How likely is it that these positive developments would have happened if there had been no outreach? Not very likely, in my view;

4. The fundraiser’s values-based, ethical approach and consideration for the donors set the right tone. Gift planning is donor focussed. The fundraiser maintained that focus throughout;

5. Stewardship is indeed like a marriage. As with marriage, strong relationships take time and effort, but it’s well worth it.

Congratulations, Anonymous, on your ongoing good work.

Murray served as a board member of CAGP’s Greater Vancouver RoundTable in its early days and as a project committee member of the B.C. Law Institute’s Society Act reform project. He is a co-author of “Green Legacies: A Donor’s Guide for B.C.”, a book for donors and advisors about gift planning for the environment.