Conduct a successful donor acknowledgement audit at your institution to enhance donor recognition and engagement.
Overview
Institutions offer myriad giving opportunities that donors might choose to support. From the unrestricted gift to the gift supporting a scholarship or program, many institutions offer dozens or even hundreds of ways donors can allocate their gifts. Unfortunately, with decentralized institutions, a multitude of giving options can lead to inconsistencies in the ways that units, programs, divisions, and schools acknowledge their gifts. For instance, some units or programs may have the resources to acknowledge their donors’ generosity promptly, while others may struggle to acknowledge them even within the recommended two-week time period. In still other instances, a gift may languish in a forgotten fund and be overlooked for months—or even forever! These kinds of delays or inconsistencies with gift acknowledgements can diminish the experiences of your donors and negatively impact your retention rate, causing you to lose contact with even your most loyal and generous donors.
Join us in this online training to help you prepare to conduct a gift acknowledgement audit at your institution by learning the steps that the University of Chicago took toward ensuring that their donors receive the thanks they deserve.
Who Should Attend
This training is for advancement professionals who want to improve their donor acknowledgement processes and procedures. Whether you are in a central office working with units across the institution or at an individual college or unit with multiple departments, if your donor acknowledgement processes are inconsistent and notes of gratitude are not being processed promptly and consistently, then this program is for you.
The Academic Impressions Online Learning Experience
Intentionally Designed
Online Learning
Our virtual trainings go far beyond just replicating PowerPoint presentations online: these experiences are intentionally designed to give you the kind of robust and dynamic learning experience you’ve come to expect from Academic Impressions. These trainings provide you with an active learning environment and an online space where you can explore ideas, get inspired by what your peers are doing, and understand the range of possibilities around a certain topic. You will leave these sessions with practical solutions that you can take back to your team or task force.
What you will get:
- A dynamic, interactive, and high-touch virtual learning experience designed to engage and set you up for growth
- Seamless online face-time, networking, group work, and Q&A opportunities from the comfort of your own workspace
- Practical takeaways and hands-on knowledge
- Guidance from vetted subject matter experts
- Unlimited access to all recorded online sessions
AGENDA
3:00 - 4:30 p.m. ET
Identifying the units to speak with and the struggles they may be facing by analyzing your data—to find out where donors are giving—can be the first step toward a successful donor acknowledgment audit. Learn how to prepare for the audit by presenting information and securing buy-in from unit leads, allowing you to have conversations that reveal why donors may not be receiving prompt and consistent gift acknowledgements.
Ideally, each institution’s goal should be to ensure that gifts are acknowledged within two weeks. By conducting an audit, recommendations can be developed to help units across your institution to strengthen their acknowledgement programs. In this session, you will learn the steps taken by the University of Chicago and have the opportunity to talk amongst peers about how your institution can consistently and effectively strengthen donor relationships.
SPEAKERS
Mary Weingartner
Director of Donor Relations, University of Chicago
Mary has worked in the field of stewardship and donor relations for 15 years, beginning at the University of Illinois Foundation in 2006. In 2009, she joined the University of Chicago’s Donor Relations team, leaving in 2012 to become Director of Alumni Relations & External Engagement for Loyola University’s Health Sciences Division. Mary next managed stewardship for a portfolio of corporate and foundation donors at YMCA of the USA, the national resource office for local YMCAs across the globe.