Last modified 6/22/10 at 1:55 PM by clientservices.
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I recently made a trip to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN with my husband. As we maneuvered our way from appointment to appointment, I caught myself staring at all the portraits of donors and names of halls and wings in honor of someone. It made me wonder; how much money does one have to donate to have a building named after them? As much as I’d like to dream, I definitely know my husband and I are not candidates for that type of gift. But, if down the road Mayo would like to target us as potential donors, what messaging will they use?
Creating messaging that will appeal to your donors and encourage them to act is always the goal. While you want to acknowledge the donors that have given you those multi-million dollar gifts (you can dream too), how many people receiving that messaging will be able to relate? Acknowledging the smaller gifts may have a greater impact on your donors. You can get them thinking about how any size gift can make a difference.
While working as a production coordinator for The Stelter Company I read through countless donor stories that came across my desk each week. While many of them had the same structure and message, the ones that stuck out the most were those featuring donors who gave on a much smaller scale. If they got me thinking, “I can do something like that too”, I can only imagine the impact they had on their target audience.
So while Mayo may never have a portrait of the Durand’s gracing a wing, if they can appeal to me on a level I can relate to, their chances of getting a smaller (and equally important) gift are pretty good.
Jessica Durand, account manager, The Stelter Company
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