A sample donor-centered communication

The non-profit community has heard lots about the merits of becoming more donor-centered over the last decade or so. This philosophy permeates everything in our resource development community including:

• How we cultivate prospects
• How we solicit prospects and donors
• It especially speaks to the importance of stewardship and non-profit communications

While there is lots of talk-talk-talk on this subject, it is confounding to me that there are so few samples readily available. For example, I had a client ask me a year ago if I could find samples of “donor-centered gift acknowledgement letters“. After Googling for what seemed like hours and calling in all sorts of favors, I finally found one or two good examples.

So, last week I almost fell out of my chair when I received an email from a non-profit organization (e.g. I’m a periodic golf-a-thon or an endowment match donor) asking me WHAT and WHEN I want to receive from them. At its core, it might be one of the most donor-centered things ever sent me me by an organization.

Here is a copy of that email:

When I clicked the link, here is what that survey looked like:

All of this got me thinking . . . is your organization “donor-centered“? If so, how is it donor-centered? Do you have any samples that you’d like to share? If so, please email those samples to me and I’ll be happy to share them.  🙂

We don’t need to all re-create the wheel. Sharing is caring.  🙂

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
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