donor stewardship

The Bad Taste of Empty Promises

Guest Blogger: Amy Lewis is currently completing her Bachelor of Management, with a major in Marketing and minor in Corporate Social Responsibility from University of Lethbridge. Amy has a diverse range communication experience, including marketing, media relations and, event planning. Amy enjoys exploring the variety of options that Marketing and Public Relationspresents.  

Recently I was approached on the street by a well-known charity and was asked to give. The street educators filled in the gaps of my understanding, clarified a few details and answered my questions. They improved my understanding of what the charity did and whom they served.  After their spiel they asked me if I was interested in becoming a regular donor - I wasn’t comfortable leaving financial information with somebody on the street, regardless if they wok for awell-known cause or not, and agreed that a representative could call me.

Why Donors Stop Giving... A True Story

True story - I have a client; a small family foundation who wanted to make a donation to a medium-sized public foundation.  This family foundation offered up $30,000 a year for FIVE years, totalling $150,000.  The conversation began in September 2008 as of today (January 2nd) the recipient still has not made the transfer of funds possible. 

Several questions arise from this situation:
  1.  What is going on internally with this charity that they cannot come back with a response (yes or no) to accepting the donation?
  2.  Should the family take the offer off the table?
  3. Why would I even suggest putting an offer like this in front of an organization that does not have the capacity to manage the gift?
  4. How can this charity better manage the donation?

After I Give, What do I Get?

This is a link to a blog, Non-Profit Communications, written by Kivi Leroux Miller, about what you get for donation.  An interesting experiment in community investing and testing the donor stewardship programs of charities.

http://www.nonprofitmarketingguide.com/blog/2008/04/30/after-i-give-what-do-i-get/

 

Enjoy the read!

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