Stewardship Program Checklist
The CASE Stewardship Program Checklist, created in 2008 by the CASE commissions on alumni relations and philanthropy, is intended to help managers conduct internal self-assessments of stewardship programs. The checklist may be useful to both new and experienced managers as they assess their programs and may also be helpful in staff training and orientation. It is intended to be inclusive but not exhaustive, and not all items may apply to every institution.

Donor Bill of Rights
The Donor Bill of Rights was developed by the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel (AAFRC), Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP), Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), and the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), and adopted in November 1993. It is a key document for fundraisers, advancement services professionals, and related disciplines.

Mastering Donor Stewardship in the Digital Age
Article Advancement professionals at institutions must determine their donors’ wants and needs before using the latest digital communications tools in stewardship activities, says a CASE faculty member.

Using Digital Communications in Stewardship Activities
Podcast Hear what fundamentals UC-Davis' Angela Joens believes an institution should have in place before it uses the latest technology to steward donors and alumni. Also, hear why she believes donor relations offices should hire and mentor the next generation of advancement professionals.

Demonstrating the Difference
CURRENTS Article Stewardship and donor relations officers, as well as other advancement professionals, must increasingly be able to answer one big question: How do we know that what we're doing is working? Underlying this question is a desire, sparked by an evolution in the thinking of donors, to help donors understand the effects of their gifts.

Stewardship Publications
Good Question I'm looking for samples of stewardship materials.

Stewardship Publications
Sample Collection The CASE InfoCenter culled and annotated websites where advancement colleagues have gathered and contributed stewardship materials.

Stewardship Videos
Sample Collection The CASE InfoCenter compiled this collection of stewardship videos that were created to thank donors. The collection includes videos from independent schools, colleges and universities, including community colleges.

Seeing Both Sides
CURRENTS Article Development officers who give to their employers or favorite charity see first-hand how well those nonprofits treat donors, and they learn from those experiences.

World-Class Donor Relations: Creating a Shared Culture of Stewardship
Product This webinar helps advancement professionals understand the role everyone plays at an institution in creating and sustaining a culture of stewardship. Pariticipants learn to define stewardship and understand everyone’s role in it. This multimedia file is a recording of a webinar originally presented Oct. 11, 2012.

Upward Bound
CURRENTS Article With the economy slowly mending, a number of colleges, universities, and independent schools are launching their biggest, longest-lasting, or first-ever campaigns. Campaigns that have recently launched are part of an evolution in which campaigns have become more donor-centric.

CASE Europe: Ethical Principles Behind the Acceptance of Gifts
Best Practice CASE Europe staff developed these 10 principles in collaboration with the Ross Group and the 1994 Group of Development Directors in September 2011.

Out of Focus
CURRENTS Article For years, development officers have cultivated prospective donors by listening to their deepest desires. Now, development officers' work increasingly involves devising a strategy for aligning the donor's desires with the mission, goals, and needs of their institution.

Ethics and Accountability in Fundraising
Product This webinar explores the current fundraising climate, discusses what it means to be ethical, reviews how fundraisers can gain trust, and looks at donors' expectations of accountability. This multimedia file is a recording of a webinar originally presented July 26, 2011.

Newcomers to Donor Relations Workshop
Conference New to donor relations? Don’t know the difference between a gift agreement and an endowment report? This optional preconference workshop will get you up to speed on the basics of donor relations.

Annual Conference for Donor Relations Professionals
Conference Develop strategies to advance your stewardship and donor relations program and gain a better awareness of new trends in this fast-growing profession.

Engagement Matters! Digital Media for Stewardship
Product This webinar discusses how institutions can increase donor loyalty and gifts by combining institutional impact stories and social media. This multimedia file is a recording of a webinar originally presented June 13, 2011.

How "Wow!" Experiences Create Lifetime Donors
Kristina Leroux for Network for Good
Article This article presents 10 components of an ideal thank-you letter, and links to a free webinar on the topic of creating great donor experiences.

Outlook: The Gift Grid
CURRENTS Article Henry E. Riggs, president emeritus of Harvey Mudd College and Keck Graduate Institute, argues that gifts exist along a utility continuum, from gifts of high utility, or great benefit, to gifts of negative utility.

Naming Policies & Opportunities
Sample Collection The CASE InfoCenter maintains this collection of links to naming policies and opportunities posted on school, college and university websites. Members who need help pricing opportunities can use the collection to review named gift amounts at a variety of institutions.

Donors Demand More Accountability from Nonprofits, Survey Says
Article A global survey on the state of the nonprofit industry reveals that donors worldwide are demanding more accountability of nonprofits.

Donor Relations and Stewardship Defined
Association of Donor Relations Professionals
Article In November 2010, ADRP published these definitions of donor relations and its four elements: gift acceptance and management, acknowledgment, donor recognition and reporting.

UK Universities Thank Donors during Donor Pin Week
Article Several universities across the United Kingdom are working together in an effort to expand an innovative fundraising initiative that uses special lapel pins to inspire giving and thank donors.

Cultivating Lifelong Donors: Stewardship and the Fundraising Pyramid
Blackbaud
White Paper Written by Frank Barry, Lawrence Henze, David Lamb and Katherine Swank as part of the Blackbaud Desktop Reference Series, this free 60-page book explains the fundraising pyramid and the importance of stewarding donors and building relationships throughout the donor lifecycle.

Incremente sus relaciones
CURRENTS Article El procurador de fondos debe estar enfocado en ver la manera de mejorar e incrementar las relación con sus donantes.

Take Five Steps to Better Donor Relations
Article A recent article in Fundraising Success magazine offers five lessons for building great donor relationships.

Office Space: Growing Your Relationships
CURRENTS Article Instead of focusing on the bottom line, fundraisers should really be looking at how their relationships have grown.

Recruit Top Leaders to Cultivate Culture of Philanthropy, Stewardship
Article Imagine achieving a culture of philanthropy and stewardship at your institution in just three years. Impossible? Not according to fundraising expert and CASE Online Speaker Series presenter Karen Osborne, who says a strong commitment from top leaders and a well-defined plan for change can make it a reality.

Steering Through Stewardship
CURRENTS Article Stewardship should not be an afterthought in a healthy advancement operation. This article describes how stewardship can be an organizing principle, directing the essential activities of trust building, relationship management, and message delivery.

Stewardship: The Webb Schools - Bronze Award
Best Practice A goal of The Webb Schools' 2007 annual giving program was to do a better job of stewarding constituents in a creative and cost-effective way. Staff implemented two new online strategies: an e-newsletter for class agents that provided current news to share with classmates, and a flash movie for reunion classes. Staff also redesigned an existing holiday greeting to omit the solicitation and serve simply as a greeting and thank you. These three strategies spread goodwill among constituents, motivated class agents and increased annual giving totals. As of December 31, dollars raised and number of donors reached an all-time high.

Donor Relations/Customer Service: University of California, Irvine - Gold Medal
Best Practice With the idea that "Our best prospects are our well-stewarded previous donors," the UC Irvine Office of Stewardship created an automated Stewardship Planning and Checklist System. It ensures that major donors are being well-stewarded, and no donor is left behind.

Stewardship: University of California, Irvine - Silver Medal
Best Practice With the idea that "Our best prospects are our well-stewarded previous donors," the UC Irvine Office of Stewardship created an automated Stewardship Planning and Checklist System. It ensures that major donors are being well-stewarded, and no donor is left behind.

Be Your Donor Day
Katya Andresen for Network for Good
Article Make a contribution to your organization to see how the process works from the donor's perspective and whether customer service and stewardship are handled well. You might identify problems or issues you don't realize your donors face.

Intentional Stewardship: Bringing Your Donors to Their Highest Level of Philanthropy
Product This book looks at the role of stewardship within an entire institution or organization and argues that organizations can use stewardship to sustain and increase philanthropy by defining ways in which donors can help the institution and by responding to their philanthropy in targeted ways.

Away They Go?
CURRENTS Article Donor fatigue is real, even if your institution hasn't experienced it yet. Development officers talk about how they define the issue and keep it from becoming a problem.

Over Goal! What You Must Know to Excel at Fundraising Today
Product More causes vying for attention, ballooning campaign goals and highly publicized scandals are among the factors that have transformed fundraising in recent years. This book addresses these realities of fundraising, explains how and why donors have changed and tells what must be done to secure their support.

The Pluto Principles
CURRENTS Article The quest for the planet Pluto teaches the need for persistence, research, strategic planning, and thinking out of the box--and why it's smart to sweat the small stuff. Astronomers discovered Pluto's existence by noticing wobbles in nearby planets. So if something in your development programs appears a bit off, it bears looking into. The discovery will be donors who want to make larger and more meaningful gifts.

Cream of the Crop
CURRENTS Article This article profiles a few of CASE's 2005 Circle of Excellence award winners in the fields of fund-rasing, special events, campaigns, marketing, alumni programs, stewardship, and advancement services operations.

Outgrowing the Annual Fund
CURRENTS Article Top-level annual donors deserve special attention to maintain their commitment. It’s often best to manage these donors within the annual fund office, but with special cultivation and stewardship methods such as in-person solicitation visits, personal letters, special events, gift clubs, and volunteer opportunities on campus boards or committees. Strategies such as challenge gifts can encourage them to increase their annual donations, and some of them will eventually make major gifts.

Charting a Course for Donor Stewardship
CURRENTS Article To develop consistency in gift stewardship among its many divisions, Virginia Tech created a stewardship manual outlining practices, policies, and expectations for the entire institution. Development officers conducted an internal audit and performed external benchmarking, then set goals and developed strategies to meet them. The resulting manual includes a mission statement, gift acknowledgement standards, donor recognition standards, and reporting standards.

The Rationale for Donor Relations
CURRENTS Article It’s the job of the donor relations professional to assure donors that their gifts will be used as they intend, and to do so in a way that motivates donors to give more. Institutions that realize that donor relations equals donor cultivation invest time and resources in this task. Barden describes the strategic use of the three main tools of donor relations: acknowledgement, recognition, and reporting.

Eternal Gratitude
CURRENTS Article Effective planned-gift recognition and stewardship can prevent donors from changing revocable gifts and help cultivate future planned and outright gifts. An initial problem is identifying planned-gift donors, who sometimes do not wish to make their plans known. Once you do identify them, you can thank them with personal visits, letters, or phone calls; by maintaining personal contact; by developing a planned-gift recognition society; by offering token thank-you gifts; by conducting special events for planned-gift donors; and by naming them in publications. For donors of life-income gifts, mail checks with a personal cover letter and conduct periodic "customer satisfaction" surveys. Endowment givers should receive annual letters from the beneficiaries of their gifts and be invited to annual endowment appreciation events.