Flip the Script: On Donor Appreciation Days

Margaret Stutt
Associate Director of Donor Stewardship
UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

One thing is for sure: it will be impossible to rally students, faculty, and staff on campus to hand write thank-you cards to donors for Donor Appreciation Day this year. This has been a standby for educating students on the culture of philanthropy, as well as sourcing good stewardship touchpoints for our donors.

To me, the biggest barrier is the students feeling burned out and not overwhelmingly appreciative of their student experience. Many are questioning the value of their virtual education, so maybe now is not the time for us development professionals to pester them with “Tell us how incredibly grateful you are—did you KNOW you ARE incredibly grateful?! WRITE IT!” as we tackle them with branded swag and free pizza.

So, at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, we are flipping the script, taking a cue from a common practice of children’s hospitals. This year, we’re giving the students something to be grateful for, adding value, and creating a new opportunity for alumni leadership donors to send “Calentine’s” to our students: notes of encouragement and insight into why they give back, sent on Valentine’s Day.

Here’s the game plan: this Thanksgiving, we will have a student volunteer send a Thankview to leadership society donors 1) thanking them profusely for their support and 2) inviting them in the link below to draft a note of encouragement to our students who are shouldering a lot. The “Calentine” will be sent to individual students along with some fun stats on the impact donors are having on the student experience (and further down the road, inviting them to join this community). The e-mail will have merged fields for the donor’s note, and an opportunity to respond directly if the donor opted in for two-way communication. It just so happens that our annual giving day is a month later, and maybe the student would decide to become a donor then. If not, maybe they will reflect back on their student experience years later and remember how a donor wrote a note of encouragement, how they felt supported and now want to express generosity as well.

We know from this month’s ADRP Research Roundup that establishing two-way communication contributes to donor retention. This year’s new approach seems like a win-win for us. It’s personal. It’s one less Zoom event. It’s getting back to the WHY instead of being tied to the traditional HOW. Gratitude. Goodwill. Connection. Supporting each other. Making a difference.

I know we are all rethinking many aspects of the way we do our work. Good luck as you assess, experiment, question the status quo, embrace a students always mindset, and uncover new innovations that will prove useful for our work going forward.