e-stewardship

There are a million ways to say thank you and for the most part non-profits do a good job of ensuring that donors feel recognized. If like me you have given to a charity who didn't make you feel good about giving, I am sure that you have made similar decisions regarding the destination of those dollars the next time they came calling for support.

One of the many things that we all recognize about electronic communication, be it email, text messages, web sites or social networking, is that the cost basis for communications in this medium can be as low as nothing and even at the high end is far and away the most cost efficient method to communicate. Even better it can as closely as possible approximate the feeling and connections of 1 to 1 communication with large numbers of constituents quickly and easily.

And we do take advantage of all of that, when we want money. And that is good. It works. We know that the average online donor gives more than the average mail donor and that they will give more often as well.

What we don't do is take advantage of this all that well to say thank you and keep them tied in. This is evidenced by the transition post online gift to mail gifts, my humble opinion on which is that we acknowledge the gift well and then often drop them into a mail communication stream that slowly changes the nature of the communications.

Some ideas to consider: Follow up survey soliciting opinions regarding institutional issues to all donors providing them with a summary of responses each quarter. A social media page with an invite only approval process that provides insider information on institutional issues (can easily be done using the media communications coming out of the media relations office but releasing the information to the public at the same time as the media.) A "concierge" page for donors that provides them with a person and email address (keep it generic so that anyone can cover vacations etc.) that will take care of campus based issues and connections.

Not all donors are going to take advantage of these and other ideas but for those that do you have an added set of connections that will help ensure that they open and respond to your solicitations the next time you ask.

Now if only I could convince my wife to think of bringing me home a starbucks when she stops to get one - time to start a text messaging campaign of my own!