If you’re involved in the wonderful industry that is sports philanthropy, you know how important it is to build strong relationships with your donors and sponsors. Regardless of your code, sport or organisation, donor stewardship is an integral part of building lasting connections and driving additional contributions. In this article, we’ll explore some top tips for effective donor stewardship that can help you to say thank you in a way that will keep your donors engaged and invested in your success.
Understanding Donor Stewardship For Sports Foundations
Donor stewardship is a term used to essentially describe the art of building strong relationships with your supporters. For sports foundations, this means creating a culture of giving and engagement that promotes your mission. But what does donor stewardship actually look like for sports foundations, and what unique challenges and opportunities do you face?
What Is Donor Stewardship?
Donor stewardship is showing appreciation, creating connections, and inspiring continued support. It involves more than just sending thank-you notes (though those are important, too!). Donor stewardship means building relationships with your donors over time, creating a sense of community and shared purpose that inspires them to give, and giving them reasons to stay engaged and involved with your foundation.
Unique Challenges And Opportunities For Sports Foundations
Sports foundations face some unique challenges when it comes to donor stewardship. For one, you’re often dealing with passionate fans who may have strong opinions and high expectations. You also need to balance the needs of individual athletes and teams with the broader mission of your foundation. On the other hand, sports foundations also have some unique advantages. Sport naturally comes with excitement and enthusiasm around a match or result. This allows you to create opportunities for donors to get involved in ways that other organisations can’t. For example, game day experiences.
Setting Clear Goals And Strategies For Donor Stewardship
Successful donor stewardship requires you to be intentional and strategic with your process. Try to set clear goals and strategies for how you will engage with your donors. Be detailed in how you will show appreciation, and how you will inspire continued giving. Additionally you are going to need to track your progress and evaluate your results, so you can adjust and improve over time.
“What gets measured gets done.”
When it comes to tracking donor stewardship, you need to consider how you will document your donors’ giving history and preferences. A well-maintained CRM or spreadsheet can help you create personalised communications and stewardship plans that make your donors feel like VIPs. If you need some guidance or a structure, check out this detailed donor tracker from Etsy.
Engaging With Donors
Building personal connections with donors and supporters
One of the keys to successful stewardship is building personal connections with your donors. Try going beyond the standard thank-you notes and generic updates. Really get to know your donors as individuals. Find out what motivates them. What they’re passionate about, and what they hope to achieve through their support of your foundation. By building personal connections with your donors, you can create a sense of community and shared purpose that inspires them to continue giving and staying involved.
Providing regular updates on the foundation’s impact
If a donor has committed to supporting your organisation then they are going to want to stay up to date on the impact of their giving. This can be as simple as regular updates on how their donations are being used, or more in-depth reports on the impact of your foundation’s work. By sharing stories and statistics that illustrate the impact of your foundation, you can help your donors feel connected to your mission and inspired to continue giving.
Creating opportunities for donor involvement and feedback
Finally, it’s important to create opportunities for your donors to get involved and provide feedback. This can take many forms – from events and volunteer opportunities to surveys and focus groups. By involving your donors in the work of your foundation, you can create a sense of ownership and investment that will keep them engaged and committed over time. And by gathering feedback and ideas from your donors, you can improve your donor stewardship strategies and better meet the needs of your supporters.
Creating Value For Donors
Offering unique benefits and perks to donors
Offering ‘money can’t buy’ benefits or perks is one approach to add value for your donors. Consider unique customised merchandise, behind-the-scenes access, or even personalised messages from players. By offering special benefits, you’ll go a long way to creating a sense of exclusivity.
Recognising the contributions of top donors
Another important aspect of donor stewardship is recognising the contributions of your top supporters. This could include public recognition on your website or social media channels, special invitations to events, or even naming rights for facilities or programs. By recognising your top supporters in meaningful ways, you can show them how much you value their contributions.
Creating memorable experiences for donors
Finally, you should consider how you can create memorable experiences for your donors. As professionals working within the sports industry, we can’t control the outcome on the field. But we can control the lasting impact that the experience can have. This experience is a powerful strategy for building relationships and creating value. Think about the donor and what motivates them. Is it seeing their favourite player, face to face. Or is it just being ‘in the room’ and the status of a VIP. By creating these one-of-a-kind experiences, you can create lasting memories for your donors and inspire them to continue supporting your foundation.
Measuring The Impact Of Donor Stewardship
Donor stewardship is more than just about making your donors feel appreciated. Your stewardship efforts ultimately need to be achieving your foundation’s goals and making a real impact. To ensure that your donor stewardship strategy is effective, it’s important to measure and make adjustments as needed.
Evaluating the success of donor stewardship efforts
Measuring the impact of your donor stewardship efforts is fairly straightforward. Keep track of your key donor metrics such as retention, average gift size, and overall donation levels you can see how successful your stewardship strategy is. By monitoring these metrics over time, you can gain a clear understanding on how your efforts are impacting your donor engagement and giving.
Identifying areas for improvement
Based on your evaluation, you may determine areas to improve your donor stewardship efforts. For example, often certain types of communications or events resonate really well with your donor base, while others are less successful. Or you may find that certain segments of donor base are more likely to be retained than others. By identifying these areas for improvement, you can strategically focus your efforts and implement tactics that are most likely to drive results.
Adjusting strategies to improve results
Once you’ve identified areas for improvement, it’s time to adjust your strategies. This may include trying out new communications channels or event formats, Adjusting your recognition and benefits, or developing new ways to engage specific groups of donors. By being flexible and willing to adapt your strategies based on feedback and results, you can continually improve your donor stewardship efforts and achieve better outcomes for your foundation.
The process for tracking and analysis can become overwhelming. It’s best not to overthink it and start with a basic spreadsheet to record donor interactions. Here is a template to get you started.
Conclusion
So how does your stewardship strategy stack up? If you have reached this point, hopefully you are feeling more confident and are well on your way, and if you need a bit of help, check out our sport philanthropy strategy services, here. As sports foundations, we face unique challenges. But the passion and loyalty that sport promotes provides unique and powerful opportunities to build personal connections with donors. Get creative and build deep lasting connections that provide real value for your donors. Be intentional, thoughtful, and of course, don’t be afraid to make mistakes!
