3 Efficiency Hacks for Stewarding Donors in Record Time

Stewardship is the critical, final step in the fundraising process. Stewardship is everything that happens after a gift is made — most notably thanking a donor and letting them know how their gift was used.

When done well, stewardship leads to donor retention and increased gift amounts. When donors feel great about the gift they made, they are more likely to continue to give moving forward.

Unfortunately, stewardship often gets the short end of the stick at organizations that are short on staff, time and other resources. Ultimately, this leads to poor donor retention and becomes a vicious downward spiral.

3 Hacks to Steward a Donor in Record Time

The good news is that there are lots of hacks — process tweaks, apps and services — to help you steward your donors more efficiently than ever before. If you’re organization struggles with stewardship, give these three a try.

1. Improve stewardship through efficient gift processing

Initial thank you letters often get held up in gift processing. Gift processing refers to how long it takes from the time a donor’s check arrives in the mail, to the time it’s deposited in the bank, and then to when a letter gets printed and signed.

If it takes your organization more than three days from the time a check arrives for a letter to get signed and sent, it’s taking too long.

Where are your bottlenecks?

• Are letters sitting on someone’s desk waiting for a hand signature?
• Are there too many steps between arrival and letter sending? Can you eliminate a step or two?
• Is data entry not happening in a timely manner?

Consider these 4 efficiency tweaks

1. Switch to electronic signatures to avoid delays.
2. Recruit volunteers to sign letters once a week.
3. Print letters BEFORE checks are getting deposited.
4. Send emails instead of letters to save time on merging, printing, signing, stuffing, sealing, and stamping.

Ensure your CRM is optimized to help make gift processing and letter printing as efficient as possible. If your CRM is making stewardship challenging, it could be time to consider switching CRM’s.

2. Apply donor segmentation to your stewardship process

Not every donor needs a hand-signed letter or a personal note. While it would be lovely to hand-sign every letter, delayed letters can do more damage than it’s worth if it takes you weeks to get those letters out. Some donors will have forgotten they even gave to you. That’s where donor segmentation comes into play.

• Segment donors so that certain categories of donors get the VIP treatment. Those VIP donors include your largest and most loyal ones. Prioritize their letters to go first.
• Lower-level donors can get batched and given bulk treatment. These letters can be prepared to go out once a week.
• You’ll also want special programs for first-time donors and recurring donors. Set aside time each morning to call all first-time donors. Recurring donors should get automated thank you letters and a more personal approach once or twice a year.

You probably have a preferred method of communication. Use it to your advantage. Can your email system get emails out quickly? Use it! Hate printing letters, stuffing envelopes, etc… nix it. You can use email to replace snail mail in many cases.

3. Leverage technology to help speed stewardship

If you have not invested in technology / services which help speed up and improve stewardship, it’s time to consider trying something new. There are countless programs on the market to make your stewardship process more effective and efficient. Many send videos or text messages rather than typical #10 letter envelopes.

Some examples of thank-you video services include ThankView and Gratavid. Both enable you to send personalized thank you videos. There are many others, with more entering the marketplace each day. Ask friends and colleagues what they use and pick something new to try this year.

Stewardship: Practicing What I Preach

Stewardship is so critically-important, even in my own business pursuits.

Over at the Capital Campaign Toolkit, we’ve hired a Chief Happiness Officer. Her primary job responsibility is to “surprise and delight” our clients. She regularly sends notes and small tokens of appreciation throughout the year.

You should have the same attitude and create a culture of gratitude for your donors. They are key partners in your work, and you want to make sure you stand out in a crowd of worthy charities.

Leverage technology to increase efficiency and effectiveness. You should never be afraid to try something new — it’s the best way to continually level up your processes.

What’s your organization doing these days to create effective and efficient stewardship? Share your favorite apps and ideas in the comments below.