From the Nominator

To steward the School of Public Health’s major donors, we created a scholarship booklet for each individual donor or stewarded party. We started by reaching out to students who were supported by these funds to share their thanks with the fund’s donor. Each student wrote their heartfelt thank you, explained how the funds were able to help them pursue their professional aspirations, and shared what it is that inspires them to study public health. Once we received these notes from almost 300 students, we began creating templates for our booklets. These templates included photos from the school, a message from our chief development officer, quotes from scholarship recipients, endowment details, and, most importantly, the letters written by students for donors. We created five different templates based on the number of student notes each booklet would hold and merged the data to finalize the booklets. After many long hours of gathering data, creating the templates, and proofing the final products; we printed the booklets and sent them out to donors. We received more feedback this year than we have had in the past and all has been positive. Donors expressed that these booklets allowed them to feel a personal connection to the students they were supporting and deeply felt the gratitude the students conveyed in their messages.

From the Judges

The panel was impressed by the approach to customization, which provides a thoughtful touchpoint to donors. The template created also leads to efficiencies for staff. The prompts to scholarship recipients are an element that others could replicate.