The stewardship showcase
Greenpeace USA newsletter: the origami whale
If you want to engage your donors give them something interesting and fun to do. This is an example of transforming the humble newsletter, with new energy and purpose, to deliver a real involving experience to supporters.
Rebecca Brown and Agnes Holliday: mystery shopping tests for PBS and the Smithsonian Institution
The purpose of these tests was to find out if the generally low levels of customer service offered by fundraising organisations in the UK and Europe were matched by similar organisations in other countries. While the results were generally depressing they also produced flashes of individual brilliance and a long list of useful lessons.
ALS Canada – ‘Ways to Support’ document
SOFII has simple tastes. We love fundraising that costs little but raises lots. Anyone can copy these materials, which are so homemade they...
Lake Simcoe Conservation Foundation: 2008 progress report
From this one low-cost publication donors can clearly see what their donations have achieved. When presenting this progress report in person to one of our major donors, he said: ‘I wish some of the other organisations I am involved with would produce this kind of stuff.’
Aide et Action press ads/thank you methodology
A simple idea for ‘start-up NGOs’ based on true donor relationship building. What’s really significant here is the way that Aide et Action’s CEO cultivated and encouraged press involvement and support, so that they were were only too willing to help with donations of free advertising space.
Richard Turner's great story
Richard Turner's advice for all fundraisers is to have a great story to tell. And the place to start looking for it is among all the people who benefit from the cause you fundraise for.
View this exhibit.ISRT thank-you and welcome letter
ISRT produced a ‘welcome pack on a single page’. This low cost example of donor relationship development shows fundraising creativity at its simplest and best. Every fundraising organisation could and should aspire to have a thank-you programme and materials at least as good as this.
WWF Canada: welcome pack for new donors
Learn how to engage and retain your donors from this early example of a donor-centred welcome pack. This is a very good and highly copyable example of the genre. And, most noteworthy perhaps is that this pack has been structured and written around what the donor would want, not what the organisation wants.
WWF Canada: new donor questionnaire
This questionnaire, though a separate and distinctive part of WWF’s new donor welcome process, is an integral part of it. Great donor development in practice, and easy to emulate.
Station WNED, Buffalo and Toronto: ‘thank you’ card to a donor
This is so quick, simple, cheap and easy it is just great. Why can’t all fundraisers take a leaf out of Channel 17’s book and send donors promptly a cheery, appropriate and inexpensive thank you like this?
Station WDCN, Nashville, USA: special ‘thank you’ to a donor
A fundraiser really listening to her donor, thinking on her feet and responding in an entirely appropriate and personal manner with a communication that any donor would be delighted to receive.
Botton Village: giving donors choices
Until Botton Village started offering its donors choices with the simple form shown opposite, donors everywhere were almost invariably not given any say in how they might be communicated with.
NSPCC’s Little Book of Change
A brilliant example of stewardship at its best, the NSPCC’s Little Book of Change is a superbly-chosen high value thank you for major donors and volunteers alike. The Little Book of Change was designed to bring to life a range of outcomes for children that had previously been presented in a statistical report. Individual stories of children and families are shown through letters, poems, stories, magazine articles and drawings. This approach could be utilised by any organisation to make its key stakeholders feel part of what the organisation is trying to achieve and to secure their help in the long-term.
DirectChange.org website
Is this the future of fundraising; giving donors direct control over where their money goes, instant feedback and the flexibility to decide what they will support, when and how? DirectChange.org is an exemplary use of new technology to bring new donors (and a new generation of donors) into charity to help meet urgent needs.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific the welcome process
Think objectively about the experience a new donor has within the first few months of joining your organisation. Greenpeace Australia Pacific has developed a new and simplified process to ensure that new donors receive clear communications that both thank and further engage them. The result is that they’re reducing the number of donors who leave within the first three months.
Greenpeace UK welcome materials, from 1992
This is an important record of an approach to thanking and welcoming donors from back in the days when the idea of sayinging ‘thank you’ and ‘welcome’ was quite new to most organisations and barely understood in the emerging field of donor relationship development.
Interval House gratitude report
This great report is hot off the press, so SOFII is looking forward to hearing what the readers think about their gratitude report.
GLFB Christmas card and thank-you card tests
Some people were so pleased with their thank-you cards that they rang GLFB to say so. SOFII is sure that when the next batch of mailings land on their doormats the one from GLFB will spark off a fond memory and, therefore, picked up first.
Send a Cow: thank-you drive
The team at Send a Cow are passionate about saying thank you to their supporters.
St Michael’s Hospital Foundation 2010/11 annual report to donors
The St Michael’s Hospital Foundation view their hard-working and very appealing annual report as an opportunity to showcase the accomplishments of the past year and honour their generous donors. It shows them that their donations have been wisely spent and have made a real difference to the patients cared for at St. Michael’s.
The Rhode Island Foundation’s annual report and legacy
To send or not to send? If you ask your donors if they want to receive your annual report, why do you think they don’t reply? It could be inertia, ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’. Maybe they think they'll be saving you time and money, they’re nice, considerate people after all. By the same token intertia will stop them going to your website to view your report online – and you will never know. If you send a printed copy, you know they have it and might they not be more likely to look at it, if it’s there in their hands? The stories here from Tom Ahern and the Rhode Island Foundatio show the power of the printed word.
Grassroots International 2010 annual report
Grassroots Interenational’s staff diligently take photos during field visits and now they have a wide choice of images to use in their annual report. They also use donor profiles to support their message, so GRI donors are interested and highly involved.
