1. Donor Engagement and Relations
The Marshall Foundation
Lynne M. Wester

3. Status Quo?
• Receipt within 48 hours
• Acknowledgment within…?
• Is that all?
• Don’t send a decal, magnet, pen, etc
• Special Event Fundraising isn’t Best Practice
• Don’t ask again right away

4. What If?
• You were able to raise your first time donor
retention from 48% to 58%?
• What would that means in terms of $s and
Donors?
• How does that effect your pipeline?
• Happy Donors tell…
• Unhappy Donors tell…

5. Too Much Looks Like Everything Else

11. WHAT WE THINK DONORS WANT
• Gifts
• Plaques
• Certificates
• Donor Honor
Roll
• Fancy Events

12. WHAT DONORS REALLY WANT
Access
Information
Experiences

13. Why?
• If a donor is stewarded properly he or she is more
likely to continue to give
• 93% of individual donors would definitely or
probably give again the next time they were
asked if a charity thanked them promptly, in a
personal way and followed up later with a
meaningful report on the program they had
funded.
• 64% would give a larger gift
• 74% would continue to give indefinitely
» (Source: Penelope Burke – Donor Centered Fundraising)

14. Further…
• 61% of donors would increase their donations
if they had greater access to information
about an organization’s performance and use
of their funds
» (Source: Adrian Sargeant – Robert F. Hartsook Chair in
Fundraising, The Center on Philanthropy at the University of
Indiana)

16. WE NEED:
• More imaginative and courageous
communications
• All we need to do is to write brilliantly,
package it superbly, and to present it in a way
that will captivate, thrill and inspire

23. Tell the right stories
to the right people
at the right time.