Making Donor Stewardship Easier Using Digital Donor Walls

With technology and the approach to donor relations evolving rapidly, investing in a digital donor wall and giving your donors and corporate partners the proper recognition can be a gamechanger for your nonprofit. Digital donor walls are a contemporary tool to use in the execution of your donor stewardship plan, helping you form strong relationships with your supporters and boost your retention rate. Let’s take a closer look at how donor stewardship is made easier with digital donor walls.

Why Creating a Strategic Donor Stewardship Plan is Important

Formulating a well-founded donor stewardship plan is critical to your fundraising efforts, and taking the time to recognize your donors strongly and emotionally plays a key role. By doing this, you are showing your donors how much you value them, which encourages them to continue to support your cause. 

Therefore, having a targeted and strategic approach to donor recognition is essential to securing repeat donors. When donors know that their gifts are making a difference and they are being recognized for their investment in your mission, this motivates them to give more frequently and even increase their gift size. And internally, board members love seeing the increase in the number of gifts that appear in the annual reports.

Understanding Why Some Donors Prefer Remaining Anonymous

Although most donors like being recognized for their gifts, some prefer to remain anonymous. There are several reasons why they may wish to not have their name publicly shared, one being they don’t want other organizations to solicit donations. 

Other reasons include they simply don’t like the attention, or they don’t want the extent of their wealth made public. For others, there could be a personal factor weighing on their decision. Whatever the reason may be, it is critical that your donor relations team respect their choice to remain anonymous.

How to Acknowledge Anonymous Donors

Since recognizing anonymous donors using a digital donor wall is not an option, simply communicating with them directly is the best way to express a thank you. For example, sending a personal handwritten thank-you note is a meaningful way to show them your appreciation, or even having a member of your donor relations team give them a call lets them know how grateful you are.

If you want to go the extra mile, create a short thank you video and explain why their gift matters and what will be done with that donation to make an impact. However you decide to thank anonymous donors, make sure it’s genuine and personal.

Effectively Recognizing Donors Using Digital Donor Walls

For the donors who do not wish to remain anonymous, using your digital donor wall is the perfect way to address donor recognition. While traditional walls used to boast a classy appeal, digital walls are moving to the forefront with a modern look, that is easy to maintain and capable of doing more than any traditional wall. 

Using a digital wall makes it simple to capture attention with vivid imagery and design, making a strong impression on your audience. And if you are looking to recognize your donors on your website as well, OmniAlly offers a virtual donor wall add-on feature, allowing you to connect with online visitors.

Traditional donor walls can be costly to change or edit but digital walls can be updated at any time and from any place because of the cloud-based content management system (CMS). For example, say that you know a few major donors will be paying a visit to your organization. You can easily plan for your digital wall to specifically welcome and highlight those donors on that day at the time of their visit. 

Digital donor walls make it simple to recognize donors based on giving or what type of donor they are. This gives you the ability to organize your donors into groups and tailor the recognition. Digital donor walls also mean you will never deal with space restrictions, freeing you to include all of your donors instead of just select groups. With this tool, you have the room to discover your most effective approach to donor recognition.

Donor Recognition Walls Offer Increased Flexibility

Digital Donor Recognition Walls can also be easily updated with new data. The cloud-based content management system (CMS) offers total flexibility as well as complete custom processing. You can even integrate your donor recognition displays with industry-leading software such as Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT.

Any changes to a traditional donor wall often require order minimums or upcharges and generally involve long lead times. Editing a digital donor wall can be done in a matter of minutes.

Digital Donor Recognition Walls provide enough leeway to discover the most effective approach to your donor recognition displays. Targeting content couldn’t be easier. 

Using Your Digital Donor Wall to Plan Special Events

If you are planning a special event for your donors or hosting a fundraiser, your digital wall makes advertising and registering effortless. Simply create a QR code for the event and add it to your digital or virtual wall so those who want to attend can just scan the code and add their name to the list. You can even add a Scan to Give QR Code for those who cannot join your event but wish to support your mission with a gift that will take them straight to the donation page and allow them to give right on the spot. This practice may even lead to your organization gaining new donors. 

Digital donor walls also provide an opportunity to showcase recent projects, and visually tell the story of your work so donors can see how their money was spent. Investing in a digital donor wall makes special events less painless and decreases the workload for your team.

Recognizing Corporate Partners with Your Digital Donor Wall 

In addition to relying on the support of individual donors, corporate sponsorships or partnerships are another source of revenue for nonprofits. This type of relationship benefits both the nonprofit and the corporate entity because when they agree to support a nonprofit’s cause, usually through a monetary gift, in return, the nonprofit promotes the corporate partner and publicly recognizes their gift. 

It’s important to present the corporate partner with incentives for giving to your nonprofit, and displaying their invaluable support for your donors and audience to see is one compelling incentive. Therefore, creating a compelling promotional plan to present to potential corporate partners will help outline the benefits of becoming a supporting partner. 

With a digital donor wall, giving a corporate partner the recognition they deserve is uncomplicated. On your digital donor wall, you can proudly display their company logo with a special thank you message, giving them the visibility that has both media and social responsibility value. With a virtual wall add-on, you can easily display this same information on your website and social media channels.  

Giving corporate supporters positive praise and recognition using your digital wall makes establishing long and lasting partnerships straightforward.

Incorporating Digital Donor Walls Into Your Stewardship Plan

Identifying how you intend on using your digital donor wall in your donor stewardship plan is essential. Setting specific and time-based goals, such as raising $1 million for a capital campaign in twelve months, helps your nonprofit identify how you want to use your digital wall to optimize the fundraising efforts.

Consider a variety of data points to more accurately measure donor engagement. Including the number of attendees at fundraising events, the frequency of giving, and the quality of communication you’re having with them.

Effective donor recognition programs are formed by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your approach. Be sure that you’re experimenting with a variety of ways to recognize donors together with your digital donor walls.

Lastly, be sure you are using specific strategies that match specific tiers and types of donors. You can group them into categories baes on your donor data points to better understand what might appeal to them.

Then, the Digital Donor Wall content you show them, or any other communication, can be more strategic, and in turn, more effective.

Conclusion

Having a well-thought-out donor stewardship plan is crucial to the success of your nonprofit, and investing in the right tool to properly recognize donors makes an immense difference. 

Whether they are long-term, new, or anonymous donors, digital and virtual donor walls make it quick and easy for you to acknowledge their gift. With eye-catching imagery and dynamic media, you’ll capture the attention of your physical and online audience, making it a brilliant platform to promote your cause and then exceed your fundraising goals. 

Make implementing donor recognition simple for your team by contacting OmniAlly and learning more about our digital and virtual wall solutions.