Donor Stewardship: How to Create & Use a Stewardship Matrix
Development staff often wear many hats, and remembering who to steward—and when—can be a daunting task!
Often, we hear from great organizations that can’t figure out why they are losing donors. Many have a steady donor acquisition stream, but their donor retention rates are low and they are losing more and more donors each year. For many of these organizations, this rampant donor churn is the direct result of poor donor stewardship practices.
But by developing a targeted donor stewardship plan and creating a stewardship matrix for your team, you can turn this trajectory around. In this guide to building a stewardship matrix, we’ll cover the following topics and questions:
Let's explore some key insights to maximize your stewardship and retention strategies—starting by defining a few essential terms.
What Is Donor Stewardship?
Donor stewardship consists of all of a nonprofit’s activities to strengthen its relationship with donors after a donation is made. For most nonprofits, donor stewardship includes everything from managing and tracking donations to thanking donors for their gifts to offering additional involvement opportunities (such as volunteering and event attendance).
Ultimately, the sign of a successful stewardship program isn’t just a retained donor who gives the same amount each year. Truly successful donor stewardship will produce growth in both the annual amount of a donor’s giving and in the types of their engagement.
How Does Donor Stewardship Impact Donor Retention?
According to the latest Fundraising Report Card, nonprofits’ average retention rate for first-time donors is only 19%, while the average donor retention rate for repeat donors is 53%. Overall, nonprofits’ donor retention rates are declining, meaning that organizations must implement new and improved donor stewardship strategies to keep donors interested and willing to give again.
Your nonprofit’s stewardship efforts have a profound impact on the number of donors you retain over time. Just think of it this way: a donor who receives frequent, heartfelt communications from your organization will be much more likely to sustain their support than a donor who never hears from your nonprofit after donating.
In the donor cultivation cycle, stewardship bridges the gap between acquisition and retention. Once a donor gives, your nonprofit needs to cultivate that relationship and keep them engaged in order to solicit another donation in the future. Without targeted stewardship efforts, you risk losing that donor and their future support.
What Is a Donor Stewardship Matrix?
A donor stewardship matrix is a chart that records when and how a nonprofit plans to engage each of its donor segments.
For nonprofits of all sizes, a stewardship matrix is crucial to organizing and managing an effective donor retention and engagement plan. While it takes time and effort up-front to develop, it will pay dividends in the long run, allowing you to easily tailor and target your communications and engagement strategies at the molecular level.
How to Create an Effective Stewardship Matrix
Now that we have the definitions under our belts, let’s make a stewardship matrix! While not every donor stewardship matrix looks the same, most contain common elements, including:
A variety of target donor segments
The purpose of each outreach strategy
Various methods of outreach
Outreach timelines
Responsible staff member(s) for each form of outreach
As a starting point, take a look at this sample stewardship matrix. It’s more than likely that you’re already implementing a number of these types of donor outreach. However, using a donor stewardship matrix will help you accomplish these tasks in a more organized and efficient manner.
By following these tips and best practices, you’ll put your nonprofit in the best possible position for donor stewardship success and increased retention. Let’s dive in!
1. Get on the same page.
When making a stewardship matrix, start by scheduling a time for your team to align expectations for your donor stewardship plan. Use this as an opportunity to look at what touchpoints are currently working and what other communications you could easily add into the mix to improve your donor experience and increase their giving over time.
Additionally, you should plan to speak to donors themselves and get their input and feedback. Ask them questions about their reasons for giving and additional engagement opportunities they’d like to see.
2. Segment your supporters.
Instead of using the same stewardship strategy for every donor, you’ll want to be more specific and personalized in your outreach. How do you accomplish this? Dig into your donor database and create segments based on your supporters’ giving history, engagement history, and potential for expanded giving.
In our sample stewardship matrix above, we included the general categories of:
New donors
Recurring donors
Mid-level donors
Major donors
Planned giving donors
However, your organization may choose to get more granular in how you segment your supporters. For instance, you might distinguish between different types of recurring donors—those who donate on a monthly versus quarterly basis.
There’s another useful donor stewardship tool you can leverage to create effective segments: the donor pyramid. This tool helps you group donors based on giving level and their potential to increase donations in the future, and it provides a handy visualization your team can use to steward donors to higher giving levels in the future. Take a look at our example below to see what a donor pyramid looks like in action.
Ultimately, your organization’s donor segments should be built based on your donor pool—not the other way around! Even if it may make the process simpler in the short term, don’t try to fit your donors into boxes that don’t apply to them.
3. Outline donor stewardship and recognition opportunities.
Next, spend time outlining every type of unique and meaningful appeal, acknowledgment, and communication that you will provide each segment of your donors.
Remember: For the most impact, different types of donors require different types of stewardship. Generally, however, consider including the following types of engagement and recognition opportunities in your matrix:
Personalized, regular appeals with rich storytelling (these can serve as both an informative piece and an ask)
Prompt and personalized thank-you calls and letters
Newsletters (email and/or print) updating donors on organizational news
Impact reports on specific projects that each donor supported
Invitations to cultivation events and behind-the-scenes tours
A short thank-you video from your staff or service recipients
Birthday, anniversary, and holiday messages or cards
Donor surveys that give supporters opportunities to provide feedback
While your outline can follow our example above, it doesn’t have to. In this phase, feel free to get creative with how you organize and present information. Your outline is a chance to get everything on paper and experiment with your approach without setting anything in stone.
4. Assign communication roles.
Decide which staff member(s) will communicate with each group of donors. For example, your organization might decide all donors over $500 should receive a thank-you call within a week of their gift. To designate staff responsibilities, you might assign the following phone calls to different nonprofit leaders:
The Development Manager calls donors who give $500-$2,499.
The Development Director calls donors who give $2,500-$4,999.
The Executive Director or Board President calls donors giving $5,000 or more.
Don’t be afraid to add volunteers into the mix while building and implementing your donor stewardship matrix. While it will initially take some management by your staff, board members and volunteers can provide a meaningful touchpoint by reaching out to mid and major donors with a thank-you call, handwritten thank-you note, or a personal invitation to an event.
5. Track and collect data over time.
Ultimately, a stewardship matrix is never truly final. As your nonprofit, community, and supporters change, so will your matrix.
Many databases now offer dashboards that can be refreshed daily or weekly for your team to view their to-do list of calls or other tasks and track key performance indicators (KPIs) and donor stewardship metrics.
As a result, you can tweak your stewardship matrix and planned activities as you collect and analyze this data to deepen your donor relationships and generate the best outcomes for your nonprofit. Over time, your donors will know they are appreciated and become increasingly inspired and engaged.
Designing a Donor Stewardship Plan with Meyer Partners
Developing and implementing an effective donor stewardship matrix can feel like a daunting task. Luckily, you don’t have to do it alone. As a full-service stewardship, marketing, and communication consultant, Meyer Partners is here to help.
Not only can we help you develop a stewardship matrix tailored to your nonprofit’s needs and goals, but we also offer comprehensive, data-driven marketing and communication services to optimize your overall fundraising and donor stewardship plans, including:
Integrated, multichannel fundraising communications, including direct mail, email, and video telemarketing campaigns
Campaign and program data analytics
Predictive modeling that helps you identify donors to steward to higher giving levels
Enriched donor segmentation tools
Ongoing housefile maintenance
Landing page optimization
If you’d like assistance with creating a stewardship matrix or executing your donor stewardship plan, please reach out. Our team would love to help your organization take the steps toward better stewardship, retention, and growth!
Wrapping Up
With a detailed donor stewardship matrix to guide your team’s outreach efforts, you’ll develop lasting relationships with donors and increase your overall retention rates. Remember to prioritize personalization, tailor every stewardship strategy to the needs of specific donor segments, and reach out to the experts when needed. Professionals like those at Meyer Partners are on your side, and we want to help you build a sustainable donor base that supports your mission for years to come.
Looking for more tips on how to improve your nonprofit’s approach to donor stewardship and the rest of the cultivation cycle? Check out these additional resources:
The Donor Pyramid: How to Steward Mid-Level Donors. Dive deeper into the ins and outs of effective donor pyramids and how they can support your mid-level donor stewardship plans.
Nonprofit Analytics: Leveraging Data for Predictive Modeling. Learn how to analyze your donor data and use it to predict which donors are most likely to upgrade their support with targeted stewardship.
Donor Acquisition: The Complete Guide to Attracting New Donors. Supplement your donor stewardship plans with an improved approach to acquisition. Read up on our top tips for attracting and securing new donors.
