Donor relation management

Introduction

Donor management refers to standardised processes and a structured system of maintaining relationships with current and prospective donors. The system will allow you to easily track the people who donate, to understand their giving patterns and to tailor your communication to their needs.

Why

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This toolkit is helpful when your organisation:

• would like to communicate proactively and frequently with donors.
• wants to build and maintain relationships with donors based on such communication.
• needs a system and database to handle incoming donations and issue receipts in a professional manner.
• wants to handle donations promptly and professionally following required legal procedures.

What you can expect

In eight steps we will support you to design a donor management system for your organisation. Here you’ll find a step-by-step overview, tools, examples and other resources for donor management.

Step 1: Understand current systems

• Study the current system and identify what works, as well as gaps and areas of improvement.
• Pay attention to the donation handling process, the donation recording process, donor acknowledgment and donor communication.
• Map out the identified areas of improvement.

Step 2: Establish need

• Evaluate the need for a new donor management system together with the management and the involved team members: what do you want out of it?
• Look into the current system and get all the details of the current donor management tools and processes.
• Watch this video to understand the donor relations cycle and importance of donor relation management.

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Step 3: Understand donors

• Identify the various types of donors and create a profile on the ideal/typical donor from each donor type.Think about age, gender, motives for giving, region, etc..
• Study the behaviour and giving patterns of past donors.
• Create a profile of the organisation’s historical donors, expected donors and how these donors will meet the fundraising needs of the organisation.

Step 4: Donor engagement plan

• Create a specific plan of how to target and engage each donor type .
• Make a donor engagement calendar, which includes how, when and what you will communicate to donors and how individual engagement will be managed.
• Show the plan to management and the team for inputs and approval.

Step 5: Donor management system

Create donor management guidelines for all involved staff, outlining each step to be followed in detail. Typical steps involved are:

• • Register the donation immediately upon receipt.
  • Record donor information (name, address, contact number, PAN number for India, amount, type of donation).
  • Give a quick response to the donor (thank you letter, 80G receipt for India).
  • Add the contact details to your mailing list.
  • Communicate according to the donor engagement plan (see former step).

Step 6: Donor database

• Upgrade or create a database ensuring that it meets the capacity and needs of the team. It can be a simple excel format or other software if desired.
• Transfer all existing donor information to the new database and fill existing gaps.
• Use the database to track communications as well as donation amounts and donor details. A database is a key component of the donation handling process and a good reference for information.

Step 7: Staff training and delegation

• Organise a training for all staff members involved in donor management to introduce the complete Donor Management System.
• Ensure that everyone is aware about their own roles and responsibilities, who is responsible for what, and how to communicate what has been done. This is essential for a smooth functioning of the new system.

Step 8: Follow up

• Monitor the implementation of the Donor Management System regularly and modify if needed.
• Analyse donors after the first year of implementation: including donor turnover (how many still continue their support and how many have stopped donating), lifecycle, potential for long-term engagement and/or volunteering and in-kind support.
• Use the results of the analysis to influence the strategy and fundraising approach for the upcoming year.

Key To Success

• All documentation should be simple and easy to use: have ready-to-use templates.
• Cornerstones of good donor management are transparency and accountability.
• Relations with (big) donors should be developed and maintained.

Challenges

• The team may not recognise the importance of donor follow up or feel there is not enough time/resources for it.
• If donor communication so far has been more reactive than proactive, it might be difficult to change the attitude of the team.