Donor stewardship is one of the most important priorities nonprofits include in their strategic plans. Stewardship entails upholding relationships with donors beyond the transactions of their gifts, leading to more engaged, passionate supporters long-term.
No matter your nonprofit’s area of expertise, it’s essential to make donors feel appreciated and welcomed into your organization as individuals—not just financial contributors. When you develop a donor stewardship strategy, you’ll secure long-lasting support and build a community of like-minded individuals who are passionate about your cause.
Like any strategic initiative, donor stewardship is better when you have data to back it up. In this guide, we’ll review tips to develop a data-driven stewardship strategy that will keep your donors around for the long term.
1. Flesh out your donor profiles.
Before you dive into your data, make sure you have enough useful information to drive your strategy. Basing your approach on inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated data may confuse your donors or prevent your communications from reaching them.
Start by auditing your donor database for any gaps or inaccuracies. An audit is an important part of the data hygiene process and will help to focus your efforts. When you remove any inconsistent or incorrect information, you can be confident you’re building your strategy using data that reflects your current supporter base.
After auditing your data, enhance your database with any missing information through a data append. A data append involves adding supplementary data to your records that allows you to better understand your donors. AlumniFinder explains that appending the right information can help you learn more about your supporters and improve their experiences with your organization by offering them tailored communications and opportunities.
Examples of the types of data you can append include:
- Demographics
- Contact information
- Income
- Net worth
- Lifestyle information
For instance, you can append net worth data to identify donors with the highest giving capacity and invite them to fundraising events they may be interested in, such as galas or golf tournaments. Make sure to store this information in a secure, centralized donor database, such as Salesforce or Raiser’s Edge, to protect donors’ sensitive information.
2. Segment your donors for stewardship.
Once you’ve learned more about your donors, create new, more informed donor segments based on their similarities, and personalize your messaging to each group. One common way to segment donors for stewardship is based on their potential to move up a giving level. For instance, you may create a segment of mid-level donors with the potential to become major donors and steward them accordingly.
Additionally, Double the Donation’s donor stewardship guide recommends grouping donors based on characteristics like:
- Average donation size
- Donation frequency
- Donation recency
- Engagement level
- Communication preferences
- Demographics
Let’s say you identify a group of Gen Z donors interested in volunteering amongst your supporter base. Knowing that this demographic is active on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, you may launch a donor stewardship campaign on these apps that promotes upcoming volunteering initiatives through polls and short-form videos.
3. Personalize your stewardship plans.
Put your segments to use by personalizing your stewardship efforts to the interests and giving histories of each group. The donor stewardship process starts by thanking donors for their contributions. Tailor your thank-you messages to each individual donor by including their name, donation amount, and an explanation of their impact.
After you’ve sent your initial thank-you, plan additional recognition strategies based on the size of donors’ gifts. For instance, you may recognize a mid-level donor by highlighting them in your monthly newsletter while you invite major donors to a donor appreciation brunch. However, choose appreciation tactics using your data on individual donor preferences. If a mid-level donor prefers to be contacted on the phone, give them a personal thank-you phone call rather than a social media shoutout.
Continue furthering your relationship with donors by sending them messages, impact stories, and engagement opportunities that resonate with their values, interests, and preferences. For example, a donor who read your animal shelter’s blog article about a day in the life of a volunteer may appreciate receiving information about how to register as a volunteer and any upcoming volunteer events.
4. Track engagement metrics.
Not only should you use donor data to create your strategy, but you should also leverage data to improve your approach. Assess the effectiveness of your stewardship strategy by tracking and analyzing relevant engagement metrics. Depending on your stewardship goals and campaigns, these may include:
- Donation frequency
- Event attendance
- Volunteer participation
- Email click-through rates
- Social media likes, comments, or shares
- Email and text opt-out rates
- Direct mail response rates
Determine if any of your campaigns or stewardship methods have been particularly engaging based on this data. Then, replicate this approach in the future. For example, if you host a donor recognition lunch that has 30 attendees and a donor recognition dinner that has 100 attendees, you’ll know that your supporters prefer dinner events and plan more of those moving forward.
5. Collect feedback.
Another way to measure success is to collect feedback directly from your donors. That way, you can understand which stewardship efforts donors appreciate the most and adjust your approach as needed.
Solicit donors’ input through a variety of methods, including surveys, feedback forms, and one-on-one conversations. You may ask your donors questions such as:
- How often would you prefer to hear from our team: weekly, monthly, daily, quarterly, or yearly?
- Have you attended any of our recent events, and which did you most enjoy?
- Are there any additional engagement opportunities you would like to see us offer?
- Do you feel that our nonprofit values and appreciates you as a donor? Why or why not?
- Do you feel a connection to our organization and cause? Why or why not?
- Is there anything else we can do to better meet your needs and expectations as a donor and member of our community?
Just the act of soliciting feedback alone shows donors that you value their opinions and can in turn reinforce your stewardship efforts. However, it’s still important to consider donors’ responses and implement ideas that are feasible for your organization to execute. When you do, make sure to let donors know that you’ve incorporated their feedback and thank them for sharing their insight.
Data-driven nonprofit strategies aren’t just a trend; they’re the best way to understand your donors and offer them customized experiences that keep them engaged and motivated to continue lending their support. Remember to constantly iterate on your stewardship strategy, and you’ll successfully adapt your outreach to your donors’ changing needs and preferences for the best results.
