Thoughts from the Group

When building an employee donor relations plan, be sure to start with one important mindset shift: This is not a standalone strategy. Your plan should supplement your broader fundraising efforts, not replace them. Your annual giving strategy, your campaign priorities, your advancement infrastructure. All of this still matters. This plan sits alongside and strengthens all of it. Employees are not simply another donor segment, they are something entirely different. They are yo

When Alice asks the Cheshire Cat which way to go from here, the cat offers a reasonable response: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. Alice says she doesn't much care as long as she gets somewhere. And the cat (who has clearly sat through a few nonprofit planning meetings btw) tells her it doesn't much matter which way she goes then. I think about that cat every October. Because there's a moment—around 5:45 p.m., linens on, centerpieces placed, the AV crew

Most organizations would happily accept a transformational gift; however, that does not mean every organization is ready to steward one well. Stewardship is the part we do not discuss enough. We talk about building principal gift pipelines, engaging leadership, and securing larger commitments.Then, when the gift arrives, donor relations is asked to create a beautiful report, plan an unforgettable experience, arrange a meaningful thank-you, and somehow coordinate everyone invo

Most non-profits segment…or do they? Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most organizations don’t actually segment; they sort their donors into lists. In donor relations, we often sort our lists by giving level, ZIP code, campaign, alumni class year, event attendance, and more. Those lists are useful—they help organize data and pull reports—but if our goal is stronger donor relationships, the groupings we use only tell part of the story. Imagine three donors who each gave $250 la

It’s no secret that I don’t love nonprofit holiday cards. I know, I know. Call me the Grinch. Except I’m not the Grinch! I love the holidays. I love gratitude. I love donors. I just happen to think we can be far more strategic with our time than spending months producing a generic card that arrives alongside greetings from your donor’s insurance agent, dentist, financial advisor, favorite retailer, and everybody else who has their address. And make no mistake: you are not the

“I would say it’s easy to be an arsonist. It’s much harder to be an architect.” The first time I heard that quote, I felt it deep in my bones. It rolled around in my head for days. Because I’ve lived both sides of it; seen the fires be set and watched the structures be slowly, painfully built. Every one of us working in this space has stood in a meeting where someone: often one with power, rarely with proximity to the donor—slaps down a proposal that undoes months of strategi

Fascinating case out of the Iowa Supreme Court: race-based scholarship allowed to stand, "donor intent cannot be casually discarded." The case, involving a scholarship founded in 1996 by alumnus Ezra Totton, made its way to the Hawkeye high court as the state's attorney general argued that it required amendment "because of a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Harvard University’s use of race in admissions decisions." Totton, a Black alumnus, established a scholar

There’s something I’ve noticed in the donor relations world that’s keeping me up at night. It’s this persistent, quietly toxic belief that being in a service-oriented role somehow means we should settle. Settle for being reactive. Settle for being overlooked. Settle for “good enough.” As if donor relations were a soft science: nice to have, not need to have. As if our work doesn’t require the same rigor, strategy, and innovation as any other core function of a nonprofit. Let

Annual impact reports are common—annual impact reports that make thousands of donors feel like they personally belong in the story are not. That's exactly what Colorado State University accomplished with its 2025 Impact Report. Rather than treating the report as a year-end obligation, the advancement team transformed it into a comprehensive stewardship campaign that reached donors across multiple channels, personalized messaging by audience, and reinforced one simple truth: e

There’s a hard truth in donor relations that we don’t talk about enough: Most donor experience problems are not people problems. They’re process problems. Your donors are probably not upset because your staff doesn’t care. They’re most likely upset because: The thank-you letter arrived six weeks late. Their name was misspelled for the third time. They received three appeals before one stewardship report. No one noticed they stopped engaging months ago. The event invitation we

Recognition societies are a hotly debated topic in fundraising circles, including among those of us at DRG. Our recent Pulse of Donor Relations highlighted this debate: for the first time in years, we saw an uptick in practitioners who believe recognition societies are effective. Even so, the question remains: to society? Or not to society? Data from the 2025 Pulse of Donor Relations Report I have seen recognition societies work beautifully. The organizations who get it right

If there’s one constant in philanthropy right now, it’s change. We’re always encountering new challenges. New donor expectations. New technologies. Increased scrutiny. A growing demand for transparency. Yet, for many organizations, donor relations practices haven’t kept pace, and that’s where the tension lives. We ask our teams to operate in a rapidly changing external environment while relying on internal systems, definitions, and mindsets that were created for a different e

When I worked at Disney, I learned a lot about creating extraordinary experiences. But one of the most powerful lessons learned had nothing to do with parades, character breakfasts, or fireworks. It had everything to do with how to make change and how to handle complaints when you do. At Disney, we had what we called the 10% rule. If we made a change: say we swapped out a menu item, rerouted a parade, or redesigned an attraction it was never done on a whim. Teams of experts h

I know we preach it often, but donor reporting is one of the most critical areas of your donor relations program. Donors must be informed about the impact of their giving if you want them to give again. But having a reporting structure alone does not necessarily make your program effective. That’s why it is important to assess whether your reporting is meeting your organization’s goals and needs. So, how do you know if your reporting is actually working? Well first, it starts

For nearly four decades, I’ve worked on donor events. When I started, conferences and professional development didn’t teach us how to design meaningful experiences—they taught us how to plan great parties. The formula was predictable: a large gathering, a long program, multiple speakers, and a clear fundraising goal. And for a long time, it worked. But over the past decade—accelerated by how people now engage with information and shifting expectations—that model hasn’t simply

Penelope Burk, the surveying sage and author of Donor Centered Fundraising , has verified through countless iterations of her research that 93% of individual donors would definitely or probably give again the next time they were asked if a charity did two simple things: Thanked them promptly in a personal way, and Followed up later with a meaningful report on the program they had funded. If you’re looking for the keys to donor retention…look no further! The real challenge, o

Let me tell you something you already know deep down, but maybe don’t want to say out loud: we all mess up. Yup. Every last one of us in donor relations and fundraising has, at some point, hit “send” on an email with the wrong salutation , mailed a thank-you letter to a donor who passed away months ago, or cheerfully invited a “valued donor” to a stewardship event...that they already RSVP’d to—and declined. I’ve been there. You’ve been there. Anyone who’s done this work longe

Artificial intelligence is no longer just theoretical. It’s here. It’s being used. And in many cases, it’s being used without policy. Recent sector conversations and institutional case studies show a clear trend: while many nonprofit and higher education organizations say they are “not officially using generative AI,” staff members are already experimenting on their own. As one higher education leader described it, when asked whether institutions are using generative AI, most

A few years ago, we asked a group of alumni board members to do something simple before our next meeting. We asked them to bring every piece of mail and donor communication they had received from the university over a three-month period. These were not one-time donors but deeply engaged alumni who supported multiple schools, programs, and priorities across campus and consistently showed up by attending events, volunteering their time, answering our calls, and investing deeply

Donor relations teams know this truth well: impact reporting works best when it follows a plan. And yet, too often, organizations jump straight to creating the reports. They may be beautiful. They may be thoughtful. They may take weeks (or months) to produce. But many times, we create them without first answering the all important question: What is this report meant to do in the donor relationship? When engagement planning comes first, impact reporting becomes intentional, s