Case Study: How One Food Bank Gives Wealthy Donors Just Enough Information

Stewardship can be tricky business. You want to keep your biggest donors up-to-date on the important work their money is supporting, but you don’t want to send them reports and updates so frequently that you become a nuisance.

So the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida has worked to strike a balance in its communications, giving donors what they want without overwhelming them.

“Some donors want all the gory details; others don’t,” says Dave Krepcho, the food bank’s president. “But all of them want some form of communication.”

That’s why it’s important for fundraisers and nonprofit leaders to have a clear understanding of how and when a particular donor wants you to communicate with them.

“There are still donors who want to see a big annual report with beautiful photos and charts and graphs,” says Rebecca Girvin-Argon, a development expert with the fundraising consulting firm Marts & Lundy. “Then there are others who think that’s a waste of time and money.”

Development professionals, she says, should make it a priority to find out what affluent donors prefer by asking them directly.

It’s also a good idea to ask donors what types of information they would find most helpful, says Ms. Girvin-Argon. Most of the time development experts recommend keeping such communications short, to the point, and packed with facts. In some cases, a personal story can convey more.

Mr. Krepcho’s group uses a number of different communications materials, including annual reports, brief investment and impact communiques, one-page program updates, and what he likes to call “Mission Moments” — brief snippets outlining the stories of some of the people his food bank is helping.

“I’ll share it with the donor in an email and put in the subject line ‘60-second snippet,’ and send that once a month or every other month,” says Mr. Krepcho.

It’s a quick read that provides supporters with important information, but won’t make them feel obligated to respond. One or two short paragraphs about a client who has received help thanks to a wealthy donor’s contributions, with enough tangible information to show the donor how his or her money is being put to use, is enough, Mr. Krepcho says. You don’t have to inundate the donor with information.

“They’re of great wealth, but they’re looking for meaning just like everyone else, so if you can connect them to the single individual who’s getting help, that’s very powerful,” he says.

Such stories also appear deeper in the organization’s annual report, while the one-page program updates each provide donors with a brief but fact-filled list of a program’s accomplishments. The charity’s investment and impact updates combine some of the depth of the annual report and some of the pithiness of the one-pagers; each presents a donor’s return on investment, the impact of a gift, a link to a video, and other information.