Confirmed Sessions: Donor Relations

Creating meaningful experiences for alumni and donors is a critical necessity when it comes to engaging your base for the long term. We all know places that are doing it well and based on the hand that fate dealt us, we may be doing well ourselves, or we may not.

The twin anchors of history and culture are the key to crafting that experience whether the “big connect” for your institution be the institution itself, the athletic program, affiliated medical juggernauts, regional features; or perhaps the city around you.

In this session we will take a look at institutions that are doing this well with their alumni and donor communities. We’ll explore their creative processes, and see for ourselves how we can apply these lessons for the good of our respective donor relations programs.

Three years ago, the LSU Foundation united three campus fundraising units under one team. What initially started as two-person team rapidly grew to a staff of seven. Over that time, our team implemented new processes across all four pillars of donor relations to serve this new and growing model; acknowledgment, reporting, recognition, and engagement. We will share a candid conversation of lessons learned, solutions implemented and plans for the future. Our successes will highlight what donor relations and frontline fundraising teams can achieve through collaborative partnership and a culture of gratitude. Join us to hear how our journey through centralization resulted in game-changing donor impact.

In a world where our Donor Relations teams are lean and demands to engage our donors are growing almost as quickly as our donor pool, how do we ensure that we are engaging and delighting all of our donors? What is the best structure to employ on a Donor Relations team? And how do we find the right employees to carry out our missions? Join Donor Relations Guru, Lynne Wester, and Executive University of Texas Director of Talent Management, Kathleen Casanova, for a session dedicated to uncovering and identifying the “special sauce” that will bring your Donor Relations team to new heights of productivity. In this session we’ll review trends and best practices employed for structuring (or restructuring) Donor Relations teams to ensure every function is covered, as well as tips and tricks any team on any budget can use to improve their operations. We’ll also share the top competencies we believe every Donor Relations team member should possess, and simple ways you can screen for them during the interview process.

In this session, you will learn how to implement and customize ThankView for higher education donor relations. You will hear about budgeting, information technology and marketing considerations during the launch phase. You will see examples of successful campaign concepts. And you will learn how to create video, construct a campaign and follow through on behavioral data.

Put yourself in the donor’s shoes. They don’t want another lapel pin or bumper sticker. They want to know they make a difference to your institution and they are valued. Donor appreciation is not expensive, but neglecting it can be. Research shows that it is seven times more expensive to acquire a new donor that to keep the one you have. The solution is simple: put the donor first, consume yourself with the DX, their experience, not yours.