Best of CASE District I Award
 

Institution: Dartmouth College

Title of entry: Reimaging Donor Engagement and Stewardship: Data Driven Program Development

About this entry: Imagine building a donor engagement program from scratch in order to retain more donors, grow their giving, and expand our donor base, we did!
The stewardship team for Medical & Healthcare Advancement at Dartmouth Health and the Geisel School of Medicine used an evidence-based approach to image, design, and launch our first ever comprehensive donor engagement program. The aim of the program is to 1)Understand our donor behavior 2)Develop data-informed strategies 3)Identify groups that have the highest potential for continued and increased giving 4)Establish a metric baseline to measure success. Using data modeling we analyzed our database to look at where, how, and when donors gave while also looking at donor behaviors and giving trends. We developed donor profiles that told the story of who our donors are, how they engaged with our institutions, and what motivated them to give. Using these profiles we determined priority areas to invest resources in to build out strategic programs with the highest potential for return on investment. We garnered by-in from leadership and recommended the launch of phase one of our donor engagement program. Phase one includes a program for first time donors, one for tribute donors, and one for consecutive donors that matches our donors' needs and behaviors and is flexible enough to offer multiple entry points for each program. Our initial program for first time donor program was launched in 2023 and we have already seen growth in the retention of first-time donors. Tribute and consecutive donor programs will launch in 2024.