Donor Retention: Writing Your Stewardship Plan

Overview

Research has shown the majority of donors don’t give again after their initial donation. In any business, retaining one person is more cost-effective than recruiting someone new, and many nonprofits are able to attract donors but have difficulty keeping them. Stewardship is an opportunity to foster and strengthen relationships with your donors and keep them giving year after year.

Learn from GCN experts how to operationalize successful stewardship, especially your major donors. You will review templates and tools and discuss best practices in setting up your systems for staying on top of donor engagement. This will include maximizing volunteers, staff, and board in stewardship activities.

Bring your current stewardship plans, whether standalone documents or components of a greater development plan, for in-class activities.

Key Concepts

• Developing a stewardship plan.
• Identifying and assigning roles and responsibilities for staff, board, and volunteers in the donor stewardship process.
• Creating targeted stewardship activities for donor segments.
• Integrating social media with stewardship activities.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Evaluate your current stewardship plan for completeness and feasibility.
• Develop a stewardship plan for successful ongoing donor engagement.
• Give examples of common challenges that hinder success of stewardship plans.

Audience

• Team members who engage with fundraising, especially from individuals:
• Fundraising and development staff
• Marketing/communications staff
• Senior leadership
• Board members, especially serving on fundraising committees