7 Steps to Create Individualized Stewardship Plans: Your Pathway to Transformational Gifts (Free Template Included)
What would you do if you lost your top 10 donors tomorrow?
In the past, fundraisers would anticipate seeing 80% of campaign gifts coming from 20% of all donors (a.k.a. the “Pareto Principle”). What they used to call the 80/20 rule of thumb has changed, however, in tandem with growing economic inequality. Recently, the Fundraising Effectiveness Project found that 76% of total dollars raised in the average organization comes from the top 3% of their donors. Keeping those top donors is, of course, of critical importance — but how can you ensure you retain their generosity to your organization?
Why is stewardship important?
Bloomerang illuminates a compelling case:
46% of donors leave for reasons tied to lack of meaningful info or to a feeling their giving is not appreciated (Penelope Burk, Donor-Centered Fundraising).
60% want impact and success stories — and say their decision to give again hinges greatly on the organization’s ability to show what it can accomplish (Software Advice, The 2013 Millennial Impact Report, Achieve and The Case Foundation).
70% of donors would increase their philanthropy if they received what they needed from charities (Penelope Burk, Donor-Centered Fundraising).
75% of donors list “information on results achieved with their gifts” as their top requirement to motivation for future giving (The Burk Donor Survey. Cygnus Applied Research, Inc. 2013).
Having a personalized retention strategy — an Individualized Stewardship Plan — for top donors is paramount.
What is an Individualized Stewardship Plan (ISP)?
The primary objective of donor stewardship is to foster deeper connections with donors, ultimately encouraging their continued support and transformational giving. What makes an Individualized Stewardship Plan (ISP) special is that it is a 12-month set of customized and strategic set of engagement steps — all customized around what matters most to the donor and the impact they are making through your institution. We utilized Individualized Stewardship Plans for top donor at Santa Clara University with strong results and happier donors contributing to campus.
7 Steps to Creating Individualized Stewardship Plans:
1. Decide which 5-10 top donors you’ll start building a ISP.
Maybe you have an abundance of staff and resources available (power to you!) but if you are operating more lean just start with your top 5-10 donors to your institution to create ISPs. The list should be centered around donors who:
Have already made a major or principal gift to you in recent years AND
You are planning to solicit a top campaign or other transformational gift for in the coming years AND
The prospect manager or fundraiser who will be making sure the ISP gets implemented is brought in to be able to project manage and follow through.
Congratulations — you identified your short list of fantastic donors for ISPs!
Next, you need to identify the key people related to this donor to be able to identify who should come to the table to create and execute the ISP.
2. Map out the donor’s relationships involved in their philanthropy.
What are all of the key relationships the donor has within the university as well as externally that are connected to or may influence their philanthropy? Involve those connected to the donor in building out this roadmap as the philanthropist might me connected to influential people you haven’t yet realized.
While I've used “donor” and “donors” interchangeably here, make sure you consider both partners (or ex-spouses, as the particular situation dictates) as their relationships, motivations and wishes might differ between individuals. A common misstep in fundraising is focusing solely on one spouse while overlooking their partner. Neglecting to engage and nurture both individuals can significantly damage the relationship with the couple. This happens all too often, unfortunately, when one spouse is an alum and the other isn’t but both people are deeply committed to the institution and are partners in philanthropic decision making. It's essential to acknowledge and involve both partners in your stewardship efforts.
Note: It’s helpful to understand the donor’s candid opinion (either positive or negative) of stakeholders you include in their ISP so their stewardship and engagement is well regarded. For example, if you know the donor isn’t a big fan of the President then it may be prudent to not lean on that leader to steward the donor.
3. Hold an ISP meeting with relevant internal stakeholders.
After completing the relationship mapping, bring together a core team of internal individuals to draft out the ISP and decide who will implement and be accountable for which steps of the 12-month plan.
Central questions to discuss to anchor the meeting:
What is the donor’s “why”?
What is this donor’s principal motivation for donating?
What about your mission or programs appeals to them?
What drives them to be philanthropic in general?
What engagement would resonate most with them?
When, how and by whom should each stewardship item be delivered to the donor to be most effective?
Here is an ISP template you can utilize during the meeting to capture answers to key questions and the plan ahead.
4. Finalize a calendar of stewardship touchpoints that identify who, what, where, how and when utilizing the ISP template.
Document the series of touchpoints not only on the calendars of who is responsible for that stewardship item.
5. Execute the Individualized Stewardship Plan.
Tips:
Adjust the stewardship actions on your calendars accordingly and be ready to be flexible on deliver and/or timing as needed. If the team is building up a back-log of actions not yet taken then consider spacing out them out further to quarterly or as needed instead of the original schedule you set.
Hold ISP check-in meetings with the team every six-months and make adjustments as necessary.
Track the plan and/or actions in your CRM.
6. Measure and celebrate the results!
7. Scale to build ISPs for more top donors, as bandwidth allows.
Hot tip from expert Kelly De Leon-Lopez, Associate Director of Donor Relations at Santa Clara University:
If feeling like a full plan is too much to take on or implement, instead think through a “light” version of individualized stewardship “touches.” Being intentional and strategic about stewarding donors in whatever frequency you can execute will only have upside from here. (Thanks, Kelly!)
Need more guidance or a sounding board around stewardship?
Contact me
Jen Stirling
Principal Consultant, Brighter Philanthropy
Fundraising consulting for higher ed and K-12
As your partner, I’ll bring my considerable expertise, high-energy efficiency, optimistic realism, relational approach, and fresh perspective to guide your team and help your institution reach its goals, enabling more students to thrive. I offer support for campaign services, development organization assessments, staff coaching and board development.
