Session 4C & 9B - Spotlight on Top Donors: Personal and Meaningful Stewardship

Monday, September 30, 2013
4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013
11:05 p.m. - 12:05 p.m.

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Description: Is your high-end donor recognition program all it can be?  While each and every benefactor is valued and deserving of appropriate recognition efforts, those who give at the most significant levels require meaningful stewardship.  Providing fundamental yet personal communication through custom plans is a recipe for happy donors.  Audience members will take with them ideas on how to tailor creative, engaging, and manageable donor appreciation vehicles used to help foster continued and augmented giving.
 
Expertise Level: Suitable for all levels
Shop Size: Suitable for any size shop
Subject Focus: 

Speaker Bio: Jo McCourt
Serving as associate director of stewardship and donor relations at Boston University since 2010, Jo McCourt is responsible for gift/pledge agreements, fund establishment, and fund impact reporting, including student and faculty letters of appreciation.  Prior to BU, Jo worked in a couple of roles in University Advancement at Boston College for eight years. She oversaw the recipient assignment process for donor-established scholarships, managed the student thank you letter program, produced fund impact reports, and ran donor relations and scholarship recipient events.  A Double Eagle, Jo received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Boston College.







Speaker Bio: Lynne Wester
Lynne Wester is a frequent conference speaker and well known resource for donor relations and fundraising expertise. She has been featured in The Washington Post,  CURRENTS magazine,  The Chronicle of Philanthropy and other industry publications.  Lynne also created the website and blog www.donorrelationsguru.com where she shares her expertise, opinions, and collections of samples on a variety of topics to the greater development world and hosts a monthly webinar series. It is her personal philosophy that the goal of any great fundraising operation is to use strategic communications and interactions to foster the relationship between the organization and its constituents and friends.  If we are effective with that strategy, they will be engaged in a way that drives them ever closer to embracing the organization’s mission and values, they will give their money, time and talents and volunteer to spread that same message with others which will encourage their fellow peers to invest in a way that will enable the organization to further light the world.

Using her expertise and hands on approach, she works with many organizations to help them keep their focus donor driven, technologically savvy, strategic, and always with a splash of good humor. She received her undergraduate degrees from the University of South Carolina and is a loyal gamecock alumna, donor, and fan. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in strategic fundraising and philanthropy.






Speaker Bio: Valerie Richardson
Valerie Richardson is a five-year veteran in donor relations at the Yale University Art Gallery. Trained as an artist, she first worked at the Gallery in a curatorial department before transitioning to the Development team.












Speaker Bio: Mary Fisher
Mary Fisher is an assistant director of stewardship programs within the Department of Development at the University of Notre Dame. In this role, she is actively involved in ongoing donor acknowledgment and recognition efforts, and is presently tasked with enhancing process efficiencies for the production of annual University endowment reports. She has a bachelor's degree from Notre Dame, and is presently enrolled in the University's Master of Nonprofit Administration program.