Have you been through the pain of loosing donors who give to your cause? Or have you been through the exaltation when your donors go on to become your ambassadors?
The difference in above two situations could be in the way you cultivated your donors. Several fundraising guru's term it as Donor Stewardship. Are you thinking what do these two words mean?
According to a survey of around 150 fundraisers conducted by Gordon Mitchie of Relationship Marketing, UK,(available at http://www.relationshipmarketing.org.uk/Relationship%20Marketing%20Ste.pdf )
"Stewardship is really about understanding your donor and their wants and needs. A good steward will know that stewardship means ensuring people give at levels they can afford and feel comfortable with so they might not need to be brought on to a higher giving level.And to a very good fundraising steward, asking only when your donors want to be asked, is a non-issue because you would know when your donor wanted to be asked without them having to tell you. That’s part of taking personal responsibility – taking responsibility for knowing when and how to ask."
Very often we ask donors less or more than they can afford. At times we ask them for causes they do not feel strongly about. We also ask them at times which are not great for them. Simply stewarding is about knowing right answers to these what, when and how much questions about your donors. Lots of hard work, but that is worth donors are!
PS: Although, the survey findings further go on to say that there are three kind of stewardships and wanting one definition type is not really fair, but the above simple understanding should be a good starting point for us fundraisers in the Indian sub-continent.
No comments:
Post a Comment