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.

Advancement Talk - Aligning Donor Vision with Institutional Needs
Podcast In this issue of Advancement Talk, the University of Manchester's Chris cox discusses aligning a donor's vision with institutional needs.

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.

Engagement and Stewardship – A Powerful Team!
Online Seminar The more engaged donors are, the more they give. The more they enjoy giving and experience the impact of their investments the more they advocate, volunteer and oh, yes, give even more!

Ethics and Accountability in Fundraising (Asia-Pacific)
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 an Online Speaker Series webinar originally presented July 26, 2011.

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 an Online Speaker Series webinar originally presented June 13, 2011.

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. Please log in to access the collection.

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

UK Universities Thank Donors during Donor Pin Week
BriefCASE 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.

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
BriefCASE 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
BriefCASE 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.

Age of Stewardship
Product This webinar helps participants discover how increased levels of cooperation across campus can lead to more giving from all sectors, including faculty and staff. Other benefits include more donor satisfaction and an institutionalization of a philanthropic culture. This is a recording of an Online Speaker Series webinar presented March 17, 2010.

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.

Organizing Stewardship as an Institutional Priority
Product This webinar discusses the best way to manage a stewardship program and covers donor relations as well as how to make stewardship as an institutional priority rather than a unit-based assignment. This multimedia file is a recording of an Online Speaker Series webinar originally presented June 5, 2008.

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.

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.

Stewardship: The Foundation for the Next Gift
Product This webinar examines the redefined elements of a great stewardship program, discusses the benefits of providing meaningful, universal stewardship to donors and outlines steps to take to create a strong foundation for the next gift. This multimedia file is a recording of an Online Speaker Series webinar originally presented May 4, 2006.

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.

Donor Relations: The Essential Guide to Stewardship Policies, Procedures, and Protocol
Product This book offers basic information about donor relations for institutions that want to start such a program. Topics covered include communicating with donors, stewarding named funds, running donor recognition societies, using technology to support stewardship, and putting on special events.

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.

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