Hi. My name is Angela Joens. I'm the Assistant Vice Chancellor of Development Outreach for the University of California, Davis. I'm here today to talk with you about Creating a Strong Donor Relations Program. It's basic elements that no shops should be without. So, let's get started. I want to talk about donor relations and really the basic elements that no shop should ever be without. So stewardship, I believe, is one of the most critical pieces of any successful development program. Donor relations is what helps you keep your supporters. The stronger you can build your relationships, the more you can grow they're giving levels. Building your Donor Relations Program begins with a really solid plan, so sort of think of it like building a house. If there's a foundation, if you have a really solid foundation, you can build anything on top of it. So during the session, we're going to review what I consider the four pillars of a really well-built donor relations program. Today, we'll have very specific learning objectives: why is donor relations so important to your program, the ways to engage and steward and cultivate your organizations donors, sort of the how and the why you should be managing your donors' expectations, and then of course, we want to talk about the fundamentals of donor relations programs. The Blueprint. So, in 2004, I joined a really important group, at least, it was pretty important in my career and development, it's Association of Donor Relations Professionals. About a dozen people who were working in this field decided we wanted to take the level of what it is we were doing in donor relations and elevate it, and so we created our own formal professional organization. And I was a member and we grew, we sort of defined what it is that donor relations was, everyone was talking about it. Everyone was using the term donor relations or stewardship, but no one was really able to define it. So, when I was on the board, we were able to actually define what we consider to donor relations to be and this is, if you go to the adrp.net website, you can find this definition there, and it's something I'm really proud of, helping create this definition. So, donor relations, if you want to really have a formal way to define it, it's the comprehensive effort of any nonprofit. It doesn't matter if it's health care, higher education, the American Cancer Society, it doesn't matter what, they are seeking philanthropic support to ensure that donors experience is a high-quality one, and that the organization can foster long-term engagement and investment, because of course, what do we want? We want our donors once they become donors to stay donors and that's our role in donor relations. Why is donor relations so important? I read this awesome book really early in my career. Penelope Burke was just coming out and she was doing this really crazy thing of talking with donors and actually asking donors what is it that you want from these nonprofits you're giving, and no one had been doing this, we all were sort of guessing what we thought donors wanted. She actually went to them and asked them, and these are some of the results that she found as a result of chatting with these donors, 93 percent of donors would definitely or probably give again the next time they were asked, if the charity thanked them promptly in a very personal way and then followed up later with a report that demonstrated that the gifts were used well. Sixty four percent said they'd give a larger gift if they received that kind of timely, meaningful stewardship. And nearly two-thirds would give again indefinitely. Now, those are statistics you cannot lie with. I mean, this is why stewardship is so critical. If we do it right, then we can keep our donors. That's the most important thing. That's our role in the whole of the development process. So, I think you maybe have seen this chart before but it really talks about kind of the cycle, what you consider the Relationship Cycle of Giving. So someone starts as an annual donor, these can be gifts of five, 25, $1,000, and they start giving and they start consistently giving and all of a sudden, we start identifying that maybe they have some potential to be a major gift prospect. They go from a major gift prospect and then we start to decide, hey, these people, they've got some goods and they have a connection to us, let's start cultivating them a little bit more. We get to the point where we're ready to make the ask, we make the ask, and they become our donors. And then, you see stewardship right there. Stewardship is a critical piece. If that was not there, the cycle would break. So, I used this as an illustration to show that while it's a relationship and it's a very fluid thing, if stewardship was cut out of the cycle, the whole process could break down. And I've seen in many organizations that it has broken. So, let's move into the four pillars of donor relations. I see this as the most critical four things that an organization can do. And as I go out and I talk across the country and meet with other folks that are trying to build a program, and they have all these grandiose ideas, I always say, "Do you have the four legs of your stool figured out yet? Do you have the four pillars?" And so, first and foremost, if you're going to build a stewardship program and you're going to do it well, you need to think of making sure you can do these four things really, really well. Gift acceptance and management, we're going to talk about each of these in detail but that's just making sure that we can take the gift and we can do what we say we will do with that gift. Acknowledgement, that's just the simple "Thank you so much for your gift." And you have to be able to do that really, really well. Donor recognition is sort of that public, sexy side that everyone thinks donor relations and stewardship is, but it's important, but it's just one element. And then of course, reporting. Reporting back to your donors, very critical. Gift Acceptance and Management, let's start there with our first pillar. This is a very critical step in making sure that we have all of the elements of a really strong donor relations program. So first and foremost, we have to look at managing donors' intent. The donor has something very specific they want to do with their gift, and we have to be, as an organization, open, willing, able to accept that gift, and use it as the donor intends us to do. If we can't do that, then we have to turn the gift away, and this is a really difficult thing for a fundraiser after they've worked really hard with a donor to get all the way to closing the gift and then us saying, "We don't feel like we can do this." One really funny example that I have is when I worked at an institution in the midwest, we received a donor who wanted to give us bull semen. You heard me right. I said bull semen. And I thought, "Oh my gosh, why would we accept this? What is the value of this? How could this even be used?" After we had the gift evaluated, it actually was a gift of $100,000 and we could use this gift, we were an Ag school, and we did end up accepting the gift. So, we were able to do what the donor wanted us to do. He received the gift credit and everyone was happy, but we had to take and do our due diligence to make sure we could, we should, and we wanted to take that gift. Because if the donor's not happy, then we haven't done what we intended to do which was to connect him or her with their philanthropic passion. So, if a donor wants their gift to go to a very specific area, let's say, they're really, really interested in Pediatric Oncology, and they want the gifts to go to support toys or aids and anything that will make a child who's going through cancer treatment easier for them, we want to make sure, it's incumbent upon us to make sure that that's in fact how those dollars are spent, so that we can say to them, "This is what your money did and look at the good that it's doing for these young people." We see a lot of this in other nonprofits that they take gifts and then, they aren't able to utilize the gifts. So doing your due diligence again up front to determine, do we have a lot of kids that meet that particular criteria? Those are the things that if you do your work upfront, you can ensure that a very happy donor on the back end. Donors, they're giving their money because they want their money to do good, and so they want to ensure that that is able to take place. Transparency. As an organization, we have to lay it out there. We need to let people know how we are investing their funds, how we are managing things, and if we make a mistake, we need to be the first to come out and say it. So, transparency is critical. There are really some awesome organizations right now, like Navigation Star and Charity Network, they're actually watchdogs for nonprofits like ours. So, it's really incumbent upon being transparent. There have just been too many examples of nonprofits who have not been transparent, who have not been honest and forthright, and shared with the donors what they needed to share. So this is critical, and this lands on the plate of the donor relations and stewardship professional. We have to own this. So, let's move into the second pillar. This is the one I think to be one of the, well, I think they're all fundamental, of course, let's just be honest, but this one is also really well done. And this dates way, way back to your mother, your grandmother, telling you when you received a gift at Christmas time, make sure you thank so and so for that gift. Well, crafting a well-written thank you note is one of the skills that I believe every person should have, and in a donor relations career or profession, acknowledgments are critical. And the things that you need to think about are that they have to be timely, that you can't get a gift in July and not send a thank you note until October, that's just too long, so it needs to get out in a timely manner. Earlier, we talked about Penelope Burke's research and she said, "If a donor gets a timely thank you note and it was written in a meaningful way, they are 93 percent more likely to give again." So, timely is relative, of course, but I think the average is it should be within a week. So, let's strive really hard to get those thank you notes with that in a week. Personal. It has to be personal. It has to tell some kind of a story. It has to talk about, what the gifts are going to be done, and what's going to be used with it? Who's going to be from? And what does it need to say? Everyone gets those sort of standard letters that look like form letters. So, find a way to make it as personal as you possibly can. If it's from, again, benefiting children at children's hospital, maybe a children's piece of art could go in with it, one of the kids that are in the hospital. Do anything you can to think of to make it personal. Also, make sure, in the letter, that you talked about the impact. Here's one example you could say in a letter, "Thank you so much for your pledge to our charity walk. We had 10,000 people walking with us today. We raised this much money and all together, this is what we're going to do, we're going to eradicate breast cancer, and it's because of you. You played a really critical part." Talk about the impact of what that gift or that pledge has made. And then finally, find the most appropriate person to sign it. It doesn't necessarily need to be the president of the university, or the department chair, maybe it's the student themselves who received the scholarship, or the young child in the hospital that received the benefit, or it's a breast cancer survivor, whatever it is, whatever organization is, that's meaningful, make sure that it's the right person to say thank you. Don't always think that it has to be that highest ranking professional because sometimes, that's not as meaningful.
