Thursday, February 18, 2016

Great New and Novel Idea for Your Donors in 2016!

As we look across the fundraising landscape, those of us in donor relations are consistently looking for simple and inexpensive ways to delight our donors. The last time I found an idea this good was the reverse honor roll from my friend Roberta O'Hara at Rutgers, the Reverse Honor Roll. 

Now the folks at Purdue, my mom's alma mater has given me new inspiration. I'm an annual donor to their giving day and have been thrilled at the execution of their subsequent donor relations efforts, but this one is simple and takes the cake. We all know of the fad for adult coloring books happening and its correlation to relaxation, and now they have embraced it in a great communication. My stress relief is needlepoint, because coloring in the lines is so not my thing, but I just loved the novelty of this thank you.
 

Absolutely clever, right? And not difficult to do! Imagine if you were at an animal organization? Your donors can color animals! What about your mascot? Imagine sending a custom one of these to some of your top donors that were colored in by your students of their name? OMG the delight!  Now some of you may not be as much of a fan as I am of these but let me tell you, in a world of long windy emails full of text and blah blah blah, this stood out among the rest! Kudos to the Purdue team for their creativity and risk taking. I took notice and so did others. 

What novel new idea have you seen lately? Do you have coloring pages for your donors? How to you encourage them to have fun with their giving? I welcome your thoughts!

Cheers,
Lynne
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6 comments:

  1. meFebruary 18, 2016 at 9:52 AM

    How timely to read this article - I work for an animal shelter and we are working on our first adult colouring book to send to donors :) I will definitely be recommending that we make a printable version to download from our website after reading this. Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. Donor Relations GuruFebruary 18, 2016 at 10:08 AM

      Great! Can you please share it once it's complete? I would love to share it with others!!
      Lynne

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    2. meFebruary 26, 2016 at 9:27 AM

      Of course! :)

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  2. Dancer DevoFebruary 18, 2016 at 11:43 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. Dancer DevoFebruary 18, 2016 at 11:45 AM

    What a beautiful way to say thank you for the creativity our donors inspire! We will share when we execute. - A Dance Company Dev Team

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  4. AnonymousFebruary 18, 2016 at 2:27 PM

    I work at a zoo and while we often do coloring contests for children, we are including our first adult coloring contest in the next edition of our donor/member magazine. Hopefully it will be a hit!

    ReplyDelete

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