B ildi Building The Plan Th Pl How To Implement A S trong Donor - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The Resource for Donor Relations Professionals

B ildi Th Pl

www.adrp.net

Building The Plan

How To Implement A S trong Donor Relations Program

Presented by:

Scott Fendley, ADRP Member and Principal y, p

Improving Operations. Delivering Results.

Welcome

• Welcome to the first of a series of webinars

scheduled for presentation through ADRP scheduled for presentation through ADRP.

• During 2010, this series will cover how to

design, implement, measure and assess a strong design, implement, measure and assess a strong donor relations plan for your organization.

• Thank you for attending this first session.

y g

Today’s S ession y

• Our session today will cover the basics on how to

put together a comprehensive donor relations put together a comprehensive donor relations plan from “thin air”.

• (If not “thin air”, then close to it…

) (If not thin air , then close to it… )

• I’ll try to answer how to go about it, who to invite

to the party, and what needs to go into the plan. p y, g p

• We’ll focus on the big picture at first, but drill

into the details near the end of the Webinar.

S

• Y
• u Need A Plan?
• Are your donors’ stewardship plans trapped in

the heads of the gift officers? the heads of the gift officers?

• Do your receipts kinda sorta go out the same

week that the gifts came in? week that the gifts came in?

• Are invitation lists to events on 21 different excel

spreadsheets? p

• Do reports on endowment performance and

letters from endowment recipients go out ‘when they feel like it’?

The Complaint p

“You only pay You only pay attention to me h t when you want money from me!”

How To Avoid “ The Complaint” p

• Developing a clear, concise, comprehensive

donor relations plan with buy in can avoid that donor relations plan with buy-in can avoid that.

• The plan needs to cover all aspects of your

development program. development program.

• However, you can’t plan for ‘every’ contingency

and exception. p

• Keep that in mind as you move forward.

S

• How Do Y
• u Do It?
• Gather what exists.

Form a committee

• Form a committee.
• Write a plan.
• Profit! Er

Non Profit!

• Profit! Er…

Non Profit!

• See, it’s easy!

Devil In The Details

• How do you get an organization to make a

fundamental change in policy to focus on donor fundamental change in policy to focus on donor relations?

• It’s a process. (But everything in advancement is

It s a process. (But everything in advancement is a process, isn’t it?)

• Over the series of webinars, we’ll discuss all

, aspects of getting a plan adopted and implemented, but today let’s concentrate on f i i crafting it.

Where To S tart

• You must have ‘something’ right?

Use whatever you have as a baseline

• Use whatever you have as a baseline.
• If you really have ‘nothing’ then document your

current processes for donor recognition current processes for donor recognition, stewardship, receipting and donor relations.

• Many institutions have lots of documents strewn

y about their files with bits and pieces of these procedures and policies. Gather them up.

Where To S tart

• So, after the looking at the baseline, you need

assess your resources assess your resources.

• What else is going on? How much time can you

devote to this? (3-6 months is normal.) devote to this? (3 6 months is normal.)

• Court allies in all areas and all levels of staff.
• If management seems frosty to the idea of

g y improving stewardship (believe it or not, this can happen), then you need to rally your allies to get it done.

Benchmark The Baseline

• If you do have documents, then measure what

current practices are versus what the documents current practices are versus what the documents say.

• A fit- gap analysis will help in this task.

A fit gap analysis will help in this task.

• Provide this to your advocate to help in his/ her

case in asking for resources and support. g pp

• Know where you’re at—that way you know how

far you need to go.

A Committee

• Turn your allies into a committee.

Yikes a committee!

• Yikes, a committee!
• But this is the best way to examine stewardship

and donor relations from top to bottom and donor relations from top to bottom.

• Hopefully, this can be sanctioned by

management and given total freedom to explore g g p everything from the acknowledgement protocol, stewardship policies, events, and staffing.

What Does The Committee Do?

• The committee should come ready to discuss,

research and debate an organization-appropriate research and debate an organization appropriate donor relations program.

• Use a cross-department team allows for multiple

i i d i h dd d viewpoints and experiences that adds and enhances the discussions.

• The focus needs to be on what donors want and
• The focus needs to be on what donors want, and

not just anecdotal information.

• Listen, and document.

Committee Roles

• The committee should have distinct roles.

One person should be the chair of the

• One person should be the chair of the

committee, another the secretary.

• The other members should be members of
• The other members should be members of

separate groups—or in charge of certain tasks.

• Everyone needs to participate in the committee

y p p to make it work.

The Committee’s Charge g

• The committee should be charged with formulating the

“official” donor relations plan.

• fficial donor relations plan.
• This sets expectations, guidelines, and policies for

stewardship and donor relations. h l h ld b d i h i di id l d

• The plan should be vetted with individual departments

and then approved by the appropriate executive.

• This provides everyone a chance for buy-in, feedback,

This provides everyone a chance for buy in, feedback, and provides a unified front.

• You need to be sure that it’s not just one voice, one

i i id

• pinion, one idea.

What Do Donors Want?

• Part of the committee should be leading focus

groups listening to feedback from the road and groups, listening to feedback from the road, and actions and behaviors by donors.

• Do your donors want trinkets, plaques, walls, honor

rolls, access, exclusivity, etc.?

• How often should you mail to you donors? Are you

th ki t h (t h il) t littl ( thanking too much (too much mail), or too little (see the complaint)?

• Even long lasting donor relations programs need

Even long lasting donor relations programs need this tune-up and check-in.

The Plan

• The crafting overall donor relations plan will be

the backbone of the committee’s work the backbone of the committee s work.

• It will encompass all aspects of the donor

relations and stewardship practices of your non- relations and stewardship practices of your non profit.

• It needs to be thorough and specific.

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• The disparate pieces that were formerly all

around the organization needs to be put together and unified.

What’s In A Plan?

• Gift acknowledgement protocol.

Major donor stewardship activities and plan

• Major donor stewardship activities and plan

development.

• Planned giving and lifetime giving donor
• Planned giving and lifetime giving donor

relations.

• Endowment reporting practices.

p g p

• Project and program-based stewardship.
• Events.

Gift Acknowledgement Protocol g

• A detailed acknowledgement plan is the

backbone of every plan backbone of every plan.

• It should list who gets thanked, who does the

thanking, and who is in charge of making sure thanking, and who is in charge of making sure the thanking is done.

• The goal is to ensure some acknowledgement

g g goes out in a timely manner, and all acknowledgements are completed in a bl i f reasonable time frame.

Gift Acknowledgement g

• Another part of the plan should decide which

giving clubs are appropriate to establish giving clubs are appropriate to establish.

• Decide what the criteria for each club is, and also

what benefits, if any, they offer. what benefits, if any, they offer.

• Keep all of the IRS rules in mind when designing

these clubs and groups. g p

Gift Acknowledgement g

• A good way to determine what you are doing is

to create a flowchart and a matrix to create a flowchart and a matrix.

• A flowchart of the process will allow you to

examine the process and see if there are any examine the process and see if there are any bottlenecks.

• A matrix can help to see if you are out of

p y alignment on some donors in the acknowledgement process. (As in, one group of d i f h k h donors gets 4 pieces of thank you – another gets just 1. Is this right?)

Maj or Donor S tewardship j p

• This part of the plan is the mechanics behind

developing individual stewardship plans developing individual stewardship plans.

• Talk about all of the elements of a plan for major

donors. donors.

• It may be best to come up with a form or

template for these plans. p p

• Someone on staff needs to be empowered in

following up with these plans.

Maj or Donor S tewardship j p

• In my experience, this is one area of a donor

relations plan that is difficult to establish and relations plan that is difficult to establish and enforce.

• The question to consider is whether gift officers

The question to consider is whether gift officers need to go ‘back’ or just start now. That needs to be considered in this plan.

• That’s an institutional decision. But again, you

want to pry the stewardship plans out of the gift ffi ’h d d f li h

• fficers’ head and formalize them.

Planned Giving

• Planned Giving stewardship can be difficult, on

both sides of the transactions both sides of the transactions.

• Many PG donors feel forgotten. Many heirs ARE

forgotten. forgotten.

• Construct your plan so neither of those scenarios
• ccur.
• It is well worth your while to assign someone in

the plan to keep track of donors and heirs of planned gifts.

Endowments

• This area of stewardship gets the most attention.

A strong plan with accountability actions and

• A strong plan with accountability, actions, and

desired outcomes is the goal.

• You need to lay out who does what who gets
• You need to lay out who does what, who gets

what, and what all of the contingency plans are.

• No matter what kind of non-profit you work in,

p y , you will have endowment donors that need to be stewarded both with financial progress and thank you letters or notes from recipients.

Endowments

• At the very least, a policy should cover when

update letters come out who writes to donors update letters come out, who writes to donors, and who is responsible for finding heirs and

• ther interested parties.
• ther interested parties.
• Much like planned giving, heirs are important as

well.

• The trickiest part is gathering the information.

Make sure other departments are on board with l your plan.

Proj ects & Programs j g

• Projects can deal with construction, renovation,
• r other projects that occur (like archiving
• r other projects that occur (like archiving

information or other programs).

• Programs are the life blood of many non-profits.

Programs are the life blood of many non profits. Donors give to a specific cause and want to be informed.

• They all have a life of their own.

Proj ects & Programs j g

• A donor relations plan should outline how you

handle the donors to these initiatives handle the donors to these initiatives.

• It is probably best to scale based on the giving

amount, but all donors to a project or program amount, but all donors to a project or program deserve some update at some point.

• Use the power of the internet to help you in

p p y designing these donor relations opportunities.

Events

• Events are a large part of effective Donor

Relations Relations.

• However, they do need to be justified, planned,

and have positive goals and outcomes. and have positive goals and outcomes.

• In your Plan, you need to list events that should
• ccur regularly, and add protocol for one-off

g y, p events like dedications and groundbreakings.

Directing Traffic g

• As you can see, there’s a lot of activity in a good

donor relations plan. donor relations plan.

• It takes resources to ensure compliance,

administer programs, and plan events.

• It takes a village to steward donors, as it were.

But you need one central person or office to guide the activity guide the activity.

• Where institutions fall short is not putting

enough money in resources (time and talent) in donor relations and stewardship.

Writing The Draft g

• The hardest part may be creating the first draft.
• There are a couple of ways to accomplish this
• There are a couple of ways to accomplish this.
• One is to have each sub-committee create their
• wn drafts based on the current documentation

and their findings.

• The second is to have one person in charge of

gathering all of the notes and information from gathering all of the notes and information from the various sub-committees.

Finishing The Draft g

• The draft needs to be circulated amongst the

committee and looked at closely committee and looked at closely.

• Sharing portions of drafts outside the committee

can be useful as long as it does not undo the can be useful as long as it does not undo the previous work done by the committee.

• One person should create the final draft to

p ensure the document reads in one voice and is consistent.

The Next S tep… p

• The next step will be submitting the plan for

approval approval.

• Keep an eye out for the next Webinar which has

been designed to give you tips on how best to been designed to give you tips on how best to make sure your plan is stamped “APPROVED”.

Recap

• Building or rebuilding a program takes time,

effort, energy, and patience. effort, energy, and patience.

• You need to gather allies from all across the
• rganization to help put it together.
• The written plan needs to cover all aspects of

your program.

Questions

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