Beginner's Guide to Donor Relations: 4 Essential Tips

If you know anything about finding success as a non-profit, then you've probably heard all about the importance of donor relations.

Although non-profits are great in that they can combine the profitability of a business with the benefit of supporting a good cause, the process of actually getting funds can be pretty challenging. Instead of being able to rely on sales or investment, not-for-profit companies have to figure out complex methods of reaching out to potential donors and successfully solicit their support.

This field of reaching out and soliciting donors is known as donor relations and it's at the heart of every successful non-profit business. In this post, we'll go over the 4 must-know tips for anyone starting out in donor relations and uncover the basics for running a successful not-for-profit.

Tip #1: Understand the Donor Cycle

The process of donor relations usually follows 3 basic stages:

1. Cultivation

2. Solicitation

3. Stewardship

Once you've researched donor prospects (we'll talk more on that in the next section), the first step is to cultivate the donor relationship. This usually entails email outreach, event invitations, gifts, etc. Essentially, anything that can develop a close relationship with the donor and garner more trust in your organization is what cultivation usually entails. Cultivating your prospects is especially important in making the next step easier...

Solicitation is perhaps the most difficult step in the donor cycle, however, getting this stage right is likewise the most crucial. Notice how we first cultivated a relationship with the donor before soliciting a gift?

Solicitation should never be rushed.

Garnering a prospect's trust and aligning their passions along with the mission of the organization is a long and complicated process, usually spanning years for especially large gift agreements. An important tip in getting this step right is to always keep in mind your donor's gift capacity and desired impact, since both of these qualities will largely determine what you end up asking of them.

Lastly, once you've solicited a "gift agreement", as it's known in the non-profit world, your efforts don't stop there. In order to make sure that the donor feels appreciated and willing to continue contributing to the organization, it's important to steward your relationship. Stewardship typically entails sending "thank you's" and providing regular reports about the impact that the donor's gift is making. Stewardship is important for two reasons:

1. It encourages the donor by recognizing and appreciating them

2. It shows to the donor that their gifts are meaningful

Of course, after you've successfully cultivated, solicited, and stewarded a donor, all that's left is to do it again! This is why the process of donor relations is a "cycle" and its also why it's important to view donor relations more as a relationship, rather than just a "sale". The end-goal of any non-profit is to foster long-term, regular donors who are passionate about the organization's cause.

Tip #2: Researching Donor Prospects

Hopefully you understand now the basic process and objective of donor relations from the previous section, but the question still remains:

"Where are the donors?!"

Ok, so the process of researching donor prospects is going to be A LOT different depending on your non-profit, but there are few basic principles you want to follow:

1. Determine your organization's relevant industries and demographics

2. Target donors who have a promising history of giving

What these two principles show is that, when finding promising prospects, the most important qualities to look for are passion for the cause and a capacity to give. For example, if your non-profit handles environmental issues, a divorce lawyer might not have as much passion for your cause as an environmental science professor, despite having potentially a higher capacity to give. What matters in a good donor prospect is a balance between these two qualities.

Tip #3: It's All About the Donor

If you're an extrovert, the idea of fostering relationships with others might sound like a walk in the park, but the truth is that donor relations is not your typical friendship experience.

The key difference with donor relations and normal relationships is that it's imperative you prioritize the donor in every way. That means in conversation, in needs, in scheduling, in any aspect of your relationship.

Of course, you shouldn't make your donor feel smothered since that's a surefire way to lose their affinity with the organization, but since your relationship with them is first and foremost a professional one (that also involves soliciting gifts) being a good listener and fully understanding your donor's goals and vision for the cause is one of the most important functions you can carry out.

Although it may sound strange, a helpful tip to remember is to write useful tabs on all your donors you're coordinating with. Small, simple gestures such as remembering a donor's birthday to send a gift or recalling a past detail about them build more trust than you think and show you that you value their involvement in your organization.

At the end of the day, what matters is that the donor is being heard and that the donor's needs are being met. Perfecting your skills as a conversationalist and prioritizing the donor before yourself is the key to cultivating meaningful donor relationships.

Tip #4: Exercise these Good Qualities

To finish our list, I wanted to summarize all our points through highlighting the characteristics that makes a truly great donor relations representative. Any good rep should be:

• Attentive

• Creative

• Good with communication

These traits may sound obvious, but excelling at each of them actually has an important role in each stage of the donor cycle. For example, creativity is crucial in donor stewardship as representatives need to figure out unique ways of expressing gratitude and staying in contact with their donors. Likewise, being good at communication is important while cultivating a relationship because being able to garner trust through conversation is pivotal.

The examples of how applicable these traits are in donor relations are truly endless, which is why these are qualities a good donor relations rep needs to live by. Although donor relations can be a tricky field of work, hopefully these simple takeaways can help equip you for non-profit success!