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Tracking is Your Friend: The Necessary Tool We Love to Hate

(Proving ROI in Donor Relations & Stewardship)


*Your reward for reading on...some good tips and funny gifs!


By Kerri M. Stancil


Published, Tuesday, December 10, 2024


A common theme you’ll experience when working in our field are frontline fundraisers and C-Suite leaders who truly dislike tracking donor interactions in a system like Raiser’s Edge or Salesforce. I have encountered organizational leaders who utilize the speech to text tool on their mobile device to transfer meaningful conversations, which is helpful. More frequently, I’ve encountered frontline fundraisers who record their donor communications at events and meetings and shoot it to you in an email to input into the CRM, but most do not do either of these. Recording key donor interactions is the fodder which informs our stewardship work, reports, strategies around funding pipelines, and ultimately these records show return on investment (ROI) for the donor relations and stewardship work we all take part in. Donor relations & stewardship positions are often undervalued and are the positions that are the first to be cut when organizational funding is low. My hope is to crack the ROI code (even just a little bit) so you can show the value of your work and help your colleagues see that value too.


Tools to Track Interactions


I mentioned one of the easiest tools to offer to your C-suite leaders in the introduction – speech to text apps on their mobile device. These are great because they can be downloaded for free, can be used in airplane mode (on their trip back to the office), and it creates a healthy business practice to record the interaction. Then the leader can send you the important tidbits they gathered during their last meeting to ensure they’re captured for future use. I once had a colleague who liked to say, “if it’s not in Raisers Edge, it didn’t happen!” and this tends to be the case, especially when relationship managers leave an organization. Some other tools are:


  • Hold a debrief with the development team (takes more time),

  • Share notes or tacit knowledge in pipeline strategy meetings (some details can be lost between the donor meeting and this meeting),

  • Utilize free applications like – an application your organization already has access to like Google workspace, many social platforms have a prospect feature, apps like Monday.com, Onenote has a dictate feature, and finally there is Amazon Transcribe.


And these are just a few.



Planning Your Next Three Donor Steps


One position I held was nested under strategic services, and we held regular meetings around donor engagement and upcoming communications, where we shared a crib sheet for our frontline fundraisers to prepare for meetings and events with high-net-worth individual donors attending. On this two-page document the front page (in a chart) would include rudimentary donor information, substantive recent interactions, what track the donor was on in the funder cycle (identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, stewardship), and key features of the relationship like – how they like to be communicated with, their first/last/most recent gifts etc. On the back page, there was an extensive list of stewardship and engagement opportunities for their giving level, with the next three steps we planned to take, which would help achieve our funding goals, in the lower third of the page. This was a great tool for the fundraisers to get a snapshot of the relationship, a sense of donor capacity and inclination, and what we, as the donor relations team, could offer in the way of support to enhance the relationship.


Motivating Frontline Fundraisers


Frontline fundraisers are interesting birds, as they all approach their work differently and at times you are working a dozen different strategies to inspire and motivate them to work within the tools you have, which is especially true with recording informative donor interactions. One scenario I encountered was leadership counting how many “substantive conversations” were had at the fundraisers mid-year and end-of-year reviews. This required a shared understanding of what “substantive” meant and required interactions to be recorded. While this motivated some, this made other frontline staff vehemently opposed to inputting meeting details. Some helpful insights:


  • Show your frontline colleagues how much your crib sheet can help them prepare for a meeting with a donor.

  • When evaluating a donor relationship – show how efficiently your efforts to record donor meeting details can be recalled, in pipeline meetings or in preparation for a quick check-in.

  • The biggest motivator or ROI – ended up happening when the frontline staff had to recount their conversations for their review, and the lack of email digging that had to take place.



How to Show ROI in Donor Relations & Stewardship Work Through Data Capture


The biggest benefit to donor relations professionals in capturing data usually occurs after an engagement event. This can be recalled on a quarterly or yearly basis, consider all stewardship, acknowledgment letters, emails, events, or standard reports that were sent. Take special care to note an increase in giving from the time before a big engagement event like a gala and keep track of giving (especially increased giving) 4-6 months post event. During your individual review or team review, show the timeline of touchpoints and the percentage of giving increase over that time. Remember:


  • Make the information easily accessible for meetings and strategy sessions, whether through you or directly to a frontline fundraiser’s landing page in the CRM.

  • When evaluation is afoot – count everything!

  • Show the before and after impact of your work – of an event, a conversation, or a report sent.


These strategies can get you started in thinking about your work as a donor relations professional as valued and necessary, create habits that empower you and your colleagues work, and hopefully make your job easier. After working at various organizations over time, I learned that it is easier to lose sight of these small truths when faced with the day-to-day work.


For these and more insights into laying the plans for a successful donor relations management plan click the button below and let’s chat.


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