Donor Stewardship: 10 Creative Minutes a Day

0:04 Welcome everybody to Visionality's Building Forward my name is Emily Barany and i'm the founder and CEO of
0:10 Visionality and we are joined today by the amazing wonderful brilliant guest
0:16 star Nico Gervasoni and we are so happy to have you
0:22 so you all know the drill big topic 25 minutes or less
0:28 so we are going to start our timers you ready ready when you are i have it on my computer three two one go
0:35 ... i'm gonna sorry real quick ... it was a soft G not a hard G but that's okay
0:42 give it to me again Gerv-a-soni... Gervasoni see
0:47 Nico Gervasoni and this is this is a good example of um
0:53 like where to improve stewardship in action and i it's okay because i've definitely done this um
0:58 which is extra embarrassing as somebody with a last name that is hard to pronounce ... pronouncing other people's last names
1:04 wrong is super embarrassing ... yeah sure with that with that start ... good
1:10 morning everyone ... as Emily mentioned my name is Nico i'm a project manager here at Visionality i've been here
1:17 ... a year and a half now joined october 2020. ... it was a big jump in the middle
1:23 of the pandemic but i'm very glad i took it i'm very glad to be here ... i see some people here from um
1:30 kind of all over i see a couple uc santa barbara folks which is great because i came from higher ed i came from ucla um
1:36 so that higher ed context is very familiar to me and i hope it'll be ... i hope some of my experiences will be
1:42 relevant for you today and so we're going to talk about donor stewardship ... 10 creative minutes a day
1:48 is the title and we're obviously going to get to it in a little more than 23 minutes but
1:53 i think the biggest thing the biggest thing we need to do before we start ... is kind of lay down some parameters of what stewardship is
2:00 ... and so i'll leave it to the group and you can drop it in the chat you can shout it out whatever you're most
2:06 comfortable with ... but asking how do you define stewardship it's a very nebulous term ... i have some ideas on
2:12 what that means but about i'll ask you what is what is donor stewardship
2:26 love it i would would definitely agree making your donors feel appreciated thank you so much
2:36 ... give it a few more seconds but even with that that is a great place
2:42 to start oh thank you Meredith building relationships and helping donors feel connected to the mission ... i agree 100
2:48 with that as well ... so i think we kind of get a sense of what stewardship is
2:54 ... what i think is most important to do as a start oh yeah thanks katie donor engagement
3:00 throughout the year agree with that as well and we will get to touch on all that ... what i think
3:06 where we can start with stewardship is that it has a definite starting point but no end point and i think that
3:11 starting point is once a gift is booked whether someone gives a dollar a hundred dollars a thousand dollars hundred
3:18 thousand dollars like that's the starting point that's the starting line for stewardship ... but where it gets
3:23 kind of interesting and sort of nebulous is that there's no end point ... and i know some folks in here know about the
3:29 the donor cycle and how stewardship kind of folds back into cultivation i think that's where it gets hard to define
3:34 sometimes that those two things kind of move side by side and can often look the same
3:40 but yes i would agree that it's to make your donors feel appreciated and help them feel connected
3:46 to the mission kind of the work they're doing kind of reminding them that they made a good choice with their resources to support you ... and that's kind of
3:53 that's the overarching goal of stewardship ... so then
3:58 stewardship like i mentioned feels similar to cultivation and they should ... both of the messages can kind of feel
4:04 the same sound the same ... you know thank you for supporting this project or this scholarship with your
4:11 gift here's what we're looking forward to doing in the future we hope we can keep you engaged and kind of keep you plugged into what we're doing there and
4:18 you can start the cycle all over again to cultivate for that next gift ... so when i was thinking about sort of
4:23 10 minutes a day there are some i use 10 minutes a day as a framework because stewardship is something that's
4:30 hard to find and so it can easily get lost in all of our to-do lists and we have a ton of them i'm definitely guilty
4:36 of this as well we all know that it's important to be grateful for the people that support us but it's very easy to get caught ... to
4:44 get caught up in other things and like that's not you know that's not a criticism that's just sort of reality we can acknowledge it
4:51 kind of ... you know work our way back and i think it's important to acknowledge also that we will never be
4:56 complete with stewardship like we're always going to have donors to think and more people to talk to so we're always
5:01 going to be playing a little bit of ketchup but i think there are some things we can do day by day to kind of rebuild
5:07 foundations to make stewardship stronger in the long run and Nico beyond that the
5:12 the technology is evolving right so now one of the things that we love doing with our clients is
5:18 ... using video software and that is new and it was not a thing
5:25 10 years ago so in addition to continually building out a program or customizing a program based on the needs
5:32 of your donors ... even just like the technology is changing around stewardship
5:38 absolutely ... and we'll touch on some of those probably later on just some some ideas that we've seen that we've had
5:44 success with but yeah it's always changing ... so we should never feel like we've
5:49 completed stewardship because we did then we're missing something for sure ... so let's go ahead and jump into um
5:56 to sort of now we know what stewardship is we know it's kind of a never-ending task ... kind of identifying for
6:03 different organizations what's appropriate for for yours ... so i think there are some factors that
6:09 we need to take into account when we're thinking about stewardship for your organization ... and i define it by three
6:15 by three things ... it'll look different depending on your organization the size the scope the mission
6:21 the kind of gifts that you bring in and they're all different because we just have organizations of different sizes and the donors
6:28 so it feels sort of kind of obvious to say that's all customizable but that is true but the
6:35 good news is that leaves us a lot of different ways to sort of ... pick and choose what works what may not
6:41 work what will work for a donor giving a hundred dollars a month to ucsb
6:46 to this specific scholarship versus somebody giving five thousand dollars a month to girls inc to support you know
6:53 this sort of capital campaign or what have you so a lot of different options a lot of different ways we can go but the
6:58 organization the gift and the donor are the three different ... avenues to to walk down
7:06 so we'll start with by thinking about the organization and i think the first way to do that is
7:12 kind of figuring out and being honest with what your budget is kind of what your resources are that are
7:18 available to you and they're all different budget can also include people in time and so i'll actually give you an example
7:24 of a time that i did not do this correctly so i had a client and one of the projects we had was
7:31 creating a stewardship matrix for them just kind of doing sort of this foundational work building from scratch
7:36 and i spent a whole lot of time and i got a lot of feedback on this really great matrix of like okay donor x giving
7:42 at this level we'll get activities a b c and d and major donors will get
7:48 a through x and all this stuff and i worked super hard and i was super proud of it and i presented it to
7:54 my client and they're like Nico this would take three people to do we have one person who runs our database
7:59 who can like who holds all the keys who can do all this stuff and so that was a really humbling moment of acknowledging like yeah this is all
8:06 great but this is way beyond what they're capable of and they're already doing as much as i can so i had to go
8:12 back and kind of modulate it and do what i could to fix it so just sort of acknowledging that what we are
8:18 just what what are the tools we have to work with ... even if you don't have a lot there's still a lot you can do
8:24 and so Emily mentioned a great so that sort of video software that is a great tool that i would recommend to
8:30 just about everybody but i do i do that with the caveat that it can take a lot of time so one of our clients who use
8:37 video software for their end of year campaign to to both make the final push and to thank
8:42 their donors ... he was really meticulous about making sure the videos were spot on and took
8:49 him a lot of time to re-record write the script shoot didn't like it redid it again and
8:55 i thought it would just be a one take and go and i was wrong and so it ended up working out but it took a lot of time is really stressful so just kind of
9:01 acknowledging who you are and what you sort of have to work with what might work for you because ultimately stewardship should be
9:08 obviously it's to make your donors feel connected but it should be out of a place of something that's sustainable for you
9:14 right so just kind of being being honest with what you're working with and what you have at the at your disposal um
9:22 so then from there ... we'll go into yeah so you're sorry i lost my train of
9:28 thought so your organization just being honest with what you have ... next we'll move into the basics so i
9:34 think there are some a couple non-negotiables that i think we would all agree on here ... the first thing you should do after any gift kind of by the
9:41 end of that day is to input it into your database the the person any contact derivation the amounts to what ... that
9:49 should not go unentered now luckily at some bigger places that's kind of done automatically so that's a huge blessing
9:54 but for other people ... it can be super ... it could just be easily forgotten and
10:00 just data entry is not fun ... there's a reason why you know people start out doing that entry it's not it's not the
10:07 coolest but it's super crucial ... so just making sure your gift is in there ... in your database by the end of the
10:13 day well and and like basics basics basics right so so
10:19 that is the entire focus of your first phase of your 10 minutes a day is what
10:25 are the basics and are you nailing them building at those systems working the systems improving the systems so system
10:32 number one is have a database have standards for how to input information into the database so you're
10:38 putting like information with like information what fields are not negotiable ... and making sure that by the end of the
10:45 day of the gift it gets into the database until you have that happening do not pass go you don't get to do
10:52 anything else that's the only focus and again it's not fun it's pretty boring it's super tedious
10:57 and it is the foundation to a good stewardship program correct yes thank you Emily um
11:04 so then those so once you do that you've passed go so sort of the three non-negotiable
11:10 activities you can do and i wouldn't recommend doing all three but definitely at least one would be an immediate email saying thank
11:17 you for your gift you gave this much to this program we're really excited to have your support here's what we can do
11:23 in the future ... you could also send a thank you letter in the mail ... my last
11:28 my last thought before Visionality that's what i did every week ... would because the
11:34 the person my boss really liked sending out letters and so i was in charge of writing the letters and making sure that was all correct ... or the last thing
11:41 would be to call them and say thank you leave them try to leave a voicemail see if you can chat them on the phone um
11:47 just saying thank you for your support we super appreciate it ... kind of what you say will be up to you but just one
11:52 of those three things definitely needs to happen ... within a couple of days
11:58 ... no later than two weeks for the thank you letter i think and then for a phone call probably within a week it's ideal
12:06 ... so then the next part of your 10 minutes and this is sort of a caveat specific to um
12:12 staff members who ... interact with board members in particular so it's a little bit of a tangent but i think one of the basics so
12:19 we talked about basics just now ... the basics that you can do with your board
12:24 is to really get them focused on stewardship as opposed to cultivation just get them really to understand that
12:30 these are the basics and without them they can't do all the really high-end really cool
12:35 ... kind of cultivation for the big events or the big sponsors or the big donors that you know they want to chase
12:40 because they're interested in your mission ... but just kind of making those bases really solid ... so the example
12:46 that i'll cite here that just happened last week that we met with a client and they are um
12:53 they're building up a development committee on their board and these are some really great people who are really engaged with the organization some of
12:59 them for multiple years ... even trying to bring on new people and one of them was talking about how
13:06 you know she hasn't gotten and they have a membership structure but she was going on about and and they
13:11 need to raise a lot of money short period of time like there's a very urgent need for them but she was going on about how
13:16 ... you know she's been a member for a while but she didn't get her rental last year and someone else at the table was like you know what i didn't get that
13:22 either ... but yeah at the same time five minutes later they were talking about this really massive event that they were gonna have that they wanted to do and
13:29 throw all the resources into and so Emily and i piped up from saying well before doing
13:35 that why don't you focus on gathering back your members reminding them hey your
13:40 your money that you've committed to us is due soon or just kind of making them feel appreciated and thought about and
13:47 cared for ... because that would be a source of income that is sitting there that is really that is ready to be
13:52 deputized for your purposes that hasn't been touched yet because you're chasing other things so just sort of getting
13:58 them back onto the basics reminding them what is already here in the house ... thinking of like a parent
14:05 who you know we have food at home that sort of thing there's plenty of food here that boards can focus on instead of
14:10 trying to go out for the very fancy meal there's a lot here that we can you know that you can
14:15 identify and it's tough too because it's not sparkle shiny like sending out membership renewals
14:22 is not fun and like like you said we have food at home like let's eat the food at home
14:29 first before we talk about going out to dinner yeah um
14:34 i got Meredith with that joke she thinks it's great [Laughter]
14:41 all right so then kind of moving away from that board specific tangent and i need to pick up my pace i'm going very
14:46 slow ... so for your next 10 minutes a day so you thought about your organization now start to think about
14:52 the gifts that you bring in and starting to build out levels and tiers based on your gift size and i think a lot of
14:57 organizations already do this sort of intuitively but i think it's always good to kind of review them make some tweaks maybe
15:03 one year you're getting more gifts at this specific level as opposed to another so just kind of seeing what the
15:09 data is telling you and kind of making some adjustments from there ... so always recommend pulling reports i'm big on
15:14 pulling any kind of reports and just seeing what the numbers tell you and kind of where you can make some change
15:19 or you can identify this tier as opposed to that tier
15:24 again i'll emphasize sort of being realistic and being honest so i'll go back to the example that i used of
15:30 writing a really elaborate stewardship program for an organization that had
15:36 an assistant a coordinator but there was only one assistant so just kind of doing kind of overestimating their
15:42 capabilities and just kind of being honest about yours and if you don't have a lot of capability that's okay and there's still plenty you can do like
15:48 there are a lot of basics that you can cover that can make people feel appreciated um
15:53 and then the biggest thing with that once you look at your report you kind of see what
15:58 the tiers are you can kind of throw out some ideas and maybe we do this for the hundred for the hundred dollar a month folks maybe we do this
16:05 for the 500 ... you can you can not be afraid to start something try it
16:11 and see if it works for you see people are responding and if they're not make some adjustments ... there's no
16:17 one-size-fits-all stewardship program and i even think if you do try to get
16:22 into that model of doing something just because we've always done it then you can kind of get stuck and people get bored um
16:29 i've run into that in the past so then you've kind of seen what the data is telling you kind of made some made some
16:36 judgments based on you know different tiers and you've committed to
16:41 trying this for this tier and that for that tier ... you can start to then think
16:46 about your segmenting your donors and i think this is especially relevant to major donors
16:52 whatever that tier is for your organization that could be five hundred dollars that could be five million dollars ... could be five hundred
16:59 thousand dollars whatever you define as a major donor i think this is where you can start to get into customizing
17:05 stewardship based on them specifically ... because because some of your donors
17:11 love being put in the spotlight love being recognized for their philanthropy and
17:17 being seen as supporting the mission and some people would rather chew on glass than to speak in public they'd rather
17:22 just give you your check or give you their check know that it's going to a good place and
17:28 not be heard from so that's where you know beyond beyond this 10 minutes if there's one thing that takes more
17:34 than 10 minutes it would probably be this relationship building i'm getting to know people who want to be
17:39 acknowledged or would rather stay the next thing closest to anonymous where they can get their name printed in
17:45 something at most but they never want to be seen by more than a couple of people
17:50 ... so yeah the i think with this this kind of goes back to the lack
17:58 of a one one-size-fits-all stewardship program ... i think this is the most important place where it you shouldn't
18:05 have a one-size-fits-all which should be different for every person ... so before i came to diVisionality i was at ucla
18:11 and we had donors who gave to scholarships who wanted the red carpet rolled out for
18:17 them they wanted to have parking paid for they wanted to meet the students that they were supporting they wanted to meet the new
18:22 dean that we just had in our graduate school they wanted to do all this stuff and there were a couple donors that i
18:28 can think of who wanted nothing more than like a phone call just saying you know thank you for your support ... they could kind of time it at
18:35 this at a certain time of the year and they're like okay that sounds great and then two weeks later there was a check in the mail to re-up their support for a
18:41 scholarship so it was just all different but the most important thing was making them feel appreciated how they want to
18:48 be spoken to ... and so one one last thing
18:54 i'll mention is that you can offer all these sorts of things but i think what should be important throughout this
19:00 process ... is asking for feedback so the way we got to figure out that
19:06 donor x wanted nothing more than report on the students that he and she he and his wife were funding
19:13 with their fellowship ... was just we asked them we offered them hey we we're hosting this event we'd love to have you
19:19 there and they said no okay no problem ... or they wanted really or they wanted
19:24 to have their name printed in our quarterly newsletter or a magazine and then like yeah that's fine and so
19:30 ... we did that and we didn't do some other things but we just sort of figured out what they what they're looking for
19:35 but the only know only way you can do that is just by asking and just being like hey
19:40 ... how often do you want to hear from us in what ways do you want to hear from us and ... just kind of figuring out what
19:46 they're like and and obviously that will come with time as you build a relationship with them you get to know them some more and you cultivate them
19:52 for more gifts again that's how cultivation stewardship kind of work together but just being honest and
19:58 asking them well and and please goodness put that in the donor database please
20:03 please please you know as as fundraisers one of the most important um
20:08 and honest things that we can do is make sure that we're building a relationship between the donor and the
20:14 organization not between the fundraiser and the organization and so it's really
20:19 important to put that nuanced preference into your donor database because if you
20:26 move on to a different opportunity it's really important that institutional knowledge stays with your organization
20:35 yeah thank you and that's a great point about building the relationship with the organization because ... fundraising people change jobs
20:42 fundraisers go from one place to another and so it would be easy to leave the pieces there where someone else can pick them
20:48 up and nothing no one's missed a beat ... and i see a question in the chat from Meredith
20:53 which is great because she beat us to the thing to do next which is what do your organization what
21:00 are you guys asking your donors so Meredith; Meredith asks when do you ask people do you have an
21:06 annual survey do you do it when you called to thank them for gifts ... and my answer to that is
21:13 i've done both in my experience we've done we've done ... annual surveys for folks
21:19 ... and this is a great way to if your database needs some cleanup you can tell
21:25 them you know we haven't heard from you in a while or we just want to make sure we have your information correct
21:30 ... so you let them enter that but then you also ask them like do you want our monthly newsletter do
21:35 you not do you want to you kind of pick and choose so Meredith that wasn't a great answer to your question um
21:41 because i have done both before and i've seen it done both ways successfully ... but again i don't think i don't think
21:48 it's bad to to try out a survey it takes some time ... but it could if you get a lot of responses then you know that
21:54 people look forward to it or you can just take an extra 30 seconds in your call to them thanking them for their gifts
22:00 you know how do you want to hear from me yeah or or to like have a couple ... stewardship opportunities in your back
22:07 pocket and so you're calling the donor hey we just want to make sure we have the most up-to-date information
22:12 great great great also i have these three opportunities are any of them interesting to you and so maybe and
22:18 maybe they're very different opportunities so again you can start to indicate preference of do you want the big flashy
22:25 red carpet tour do you want to have a one-on-one with our board president you know do you
22:30 want to meet someone who's the recipient of your gift you know whatever
22:35 ... yeah what else what else do y'all ask your donors
22:42 put it in the chat come off mute we want to hear what's working for each of you also five minute warning my friend
22:54 oh Meredith good luck Meredith says she they're switching crms
23:02 good luck call us first call call us if when you want to cry because it's tough
23:09 all right let's keep it let's keep it moving Nico sure so tell me about
23:15 frequent donors like a monthly or recurring donor do i need to call them 700 times a year like what does that
23:22 program look like yeah so ... the answer to your question is no you don't need to call them every month
23:29 ... what feels right to me in terms of frequency to to reach out to them is
23:34 probably about once a quarter ... just letting them know you know thank you for
23:39 your gifts the last couple of months here's what you've supported at what amount um
23:44 and here's what we're up to we in the last couple months we've done x y and z in the next few months we're doing a b
23:51 and c ... your your ongoing support will be meaningful as we do those things ... we'd love to
23:58 get to get engaged with you more here's how you can contact us so i would definitely um
24:05 recommend definitely not every month ... maybe for a tax receipt purposes for for
24:10 accounting those sorts of things but in terms of that sort of not more relational ... contact from you i would
24:17 see if i would see into a couple times a year that feels right to me excellent
24:23 so so to sum up these are sort of the four phases of your 10 minutes a day program
24:29 right the first phase is setting the budget just so you know what you're working with and be
24:35 really honest about it because a good stewardship program is a sustainable stewardship program so just
24:42 where you are today is not where you're going to be in a year just be honest about where you are and that's okay and
24:49 build a program that fits within your within your limitations ... so that's your first phase of 10
24:55 minutes a day second phase of 10 minutes a day is nailing the basics so those were like
25:01 the database the thank you phone call and letter and and part of that is educating your board
25:09 about why stewardship is more important than cultivation and getting them engaged in that stewardship process
25:17 third phase of 10 minutes a day is building out your level so pulling that that donor database
25:24 report and just starting to build out some structure and your structure is gonna change ... you're
25:30 gonna learn a lot from it and it's a really evolving process and then the fourth set of ten minutes a
25:37 day is working on segmentation and really deeping deepening and i'd say
25:42 personalizing those relationships did we do it
25:48 yeah we did according to my 25 minutes i think you may have given me a few more than than uh
25:55 ... yeah those are those are the 10 minutes i think one last recommendation i would make is that i don't think you
26:01 need to do steps one through four all in ten minutes like there are going to be some days where item one and setting your budget and
26:08 knowing what you're working with is going to take up your entire 10 minutes and that's okay ... and some days you're gonna skip
26:15 two and four go back to three like you know no two days are the same ... you might be able to anticipate kind of a
26:22 rhythm but i would yeah if you can get to all four and ten minutes then
26:27 good on you and also you know maybe we can sprucing up that report a little bit in step three but uh
26:34 yeah just some for just four quick ... ways to improve your stewardship in 10 minutes a day either at the beginning
26:40 of the day the end of the day over lunch i don't know ... but yeah
26:47 so we want to hear from y'all ... who who are on the webinar
26:54 what are you guys up to what has worked really well what has not worked really well as you're building in your donor
27:00 stewardship problem or ... donor stewardship program and like are there challenges that we
27:06 can workshop you know between all of us we have an incredible ex set of experiences in in fundraising
27:13 and donor stewardship and so share some successes with me like
27:19 what what has gone really well i'll share something quickly my name is stacy i'm with ucsb student affairs and
27:25 my colleague marisa is on the call as well and i just wanted to thank you for that phrase of like we have food at home
27:32 it's so helpful because ... in my role in the last two years we have not been thorough with our renewals which are so
27:38 basic it's so basic and thanks to marissa our new assistant this year we've been able to lock that system
27:45 in and in the in just she just gave us a report this morning that 3 200 came in from the first round of letters that
27:51 went out and so it's just that reminder that these very basic things are basic for a reason and
27:57 they feel like maybe they're not as flashy and important and they're so important because people will just drop off if you don't keep talking to them
28:02 they just fall away because they don't feel like they're important and some of these people maybe even haven't been stewarded that well but
28:08 just getting the reminder letter was enough for them to go oh yeah i really still care about that program so ... thank you for emphasizing that yes
28:16 good job absolutely i would love to hear stories about great assistance i started
28:21 as an assistant so i am extremely sympathetic to the cause making sure
28:27 stewardship gets rolling assistant level so marissa shouts out to you even though you're not on video
28:33 that's okay what else who else has had a recent success
28:38 ... so we borrowed something we saw from another non-profit where they sent out branded
28:44 note cards to their donors and so we designed and created our own brand and
28:50 note cards and sent them out to our major donors to thank them for their support and
28:56 to be connected and to give them an opportunity to connect with people that they haven't reached out to in a while
29:01 and we got one of our note cards sent back to us with a gift in it which was not our intention at all but
29:07 was a nice surprise well and i have seen these note cards so so Meredith is with women's economic
29:14 ventures and they help people start and grow businesses in the tri counties and so what they did again stewardship has
29:20 to be mission focused and so they collected
29:25 ... stories from their clients and created these
29:30 beautiful like mission true note cards like thank you cards with
29:35 client ... statements and information and a nice photo that then got sent to the
29:41 donor so that i could send it out to somebody and they were just so well done i love a stewardship and a cultivation
29:48 moment that is like so perfectly on mission so good job yeah big props to you i love
29:54 that and that's and that's a good ... that's a good example of someone doing
30:02 the step number one really well kind of knowing your budget because like printing materials like that it's not
30:07 cheap but it you know if you do it right and you do it well it's a good investment and you know it's starting to
30:12 pay back if people are gonna send you checks along with the postcard back so yeah
30:18 that's a good that's a real good example of someone doing step one real well way to go
30:26 what else does anyone else have a success that they want to share with the group
30:42 or any questions we can workshop together
30:51 perhaps we've solved it yeah we pushed the
30:56 the boulder up the hill just a little bit further ... all right well everyone thank you for
31:03 spending ... your wednesday morning with us we do this once a month usually
31:09 the first wednesday of the month we if you want a guest star like Nico did
31:15 ... email us we want to hear from you y'all are the experts in in fundraising and so
31:21 we'd love to have a conversation about what's working really well in your organization so we can just share the
31:27 love around so thank you all very much for your time niko thank you very much this was really wonderful have
31:33 a great week everyone. Thanks, y'all take care, good luck out there!