Healthy Habits for Strong Stewardship- A Quarterly Practice

We've been exploring what key habits can shape our organizations’ giving trends. A robust stewardship program is built on consistent and committed work year-round. In this series, we’ve explored a habit for each day, each week, and each month that can make a big difference in donor engagement.

So far these habits have been focused on our cultivation, appreciation and engagement of the donor. We’ve looked at acknowledgments and storytelling as ways to let our givers see the impact they have on our organization’s day-to-day mission in the world.

Today, we’ll look at a quarterly habit that is more internally focused, but equally important. This habit is a review of your donor patterns and records. Set aside time at last once each quarter to review your givers. Has someone who has been a consistent giver fallen off? Has someone who had been giving $50 a week increased their gift? Has someone who had been lapsed starting making a monthly contribution again?

Part of appreciating and stewarding donors is recognizing when something significant has changed in their giving patterns. Someone who’s increased their commitment deserves a special acknowledgement. Someone who had been a faithful giver but has stopped should be a flag for contact. Sometimes it’s as simple as an expired credit card on a recurring giving platform. Other times, people just need to hear that they are missed and to receive a call to become re-engaged. Each donor is an individual whose gifts deserve thanks and appreciation.

A quarterly review of these patterns could fit nicely with a review of your overall contribution goals and trends as a nonprofit. Are you pacing ahead or behind where you need to be for the year? Major changes in individual donors patterns can inform that review and help you plan.

We encourage organizations to offer a recurring giving platform to donors and educate them on how their monthly or weekly automatic gifts help you plan financially. If you’ve promoted such a platform to your audiences, use the quarterly review to identify how that is working and if there are groups of donors who might benefit from additional communication about automatic recurring giving.

I hope these simple habits will help you grow donor excitement for your mission. A small investment of time each day, week, month and quarter can make a huge difference and change the trajectories of your donors’ giving. 

-Tim Smith