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"It's All About the Donor"

October 11, 2011 - Program Summary

Fundraising professionals in all areas joined one another to talk donor relations with Jan Lawlor, Assistant Vice President of Donor Relations and Development Marketing at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund. The room quickly filled as Jan dove into details of world class donor relations.

Jan's overarching topics included: gift acceptance and management; acknowledgement; donor recognition; and reporting. While referencing her team of 15 donor relations professionals at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, she also spoke generally regarding teams of one and small shops.

To start, she suggested acceptance and management policies with examples of management in the form of reporting. These topics led the group to acknowledgement tips and options depending on the organization, donors, and staff.

Jan said she felt donor recognition could be a WID Brown Bag event on its own. She touched on seven thank yous per gift, recognition events, societies, honor rolls, donor walls, named spaces, donor profiles, and volunteers.

Finally she shared reporting strategies for different gifts and for different donors.

Jan concluded by discussing resources including professional organizations, books, and online documents.

View Jan Lawlor's Presentation (PDF)