5 Steps to Create a Donor Stewardship Matrix for Nonprofits

Donor stewardship goes beyond securing a one-time gift; it’s about building donor relationships, deepening their loyalty, and encouraging recurring support. Strong donor relationships mean your nonprofit has a steady base of support, making it easier to grow and withstand market fluctuations that can interrupt strategic plans.  

A Donor Stewardship Matrix is an effective tool for prioritizing and personalizing engagement with donors, ensuring that your organization builds meaningful relationships and maximizes donor retention. It categorizes donors based on two key dimensions: 

1. Level of Giving (e.g., major gifts, mid-level gifts, recurring gifts, one-time gifts)
2. Engagement Level (e.g., active involvement, event participation, responsiveness to communications).

Each donor falls into a quadrant or segment, allowing you to tailor strategies based on their behavior and contributions. This guide explores how your nonprofit can create a donor stewardship matrix in five steps and how it can help you attract more gifts. 

What Is a Donor Stewardship Matrix?

A Donor Stewardship Matrix is a simple tool that helps nonprofits organize how they build relationships with donors. It outlines:

• Different types of donors (like first-time, recurring, or major donors)
• Specific actions your team should take to thank, communicate with, and engage each group
  

Here’s an example of a Donor Stewardship Matrix: 

This tool allows your nonprofit to prioritize resources, personalize communications, strengthen donor retention, and map strategic growth. 

Now, let's explore the 5 steps you can take to build your own Donor Stewardship Matrix.

Define Donor Segments

The donor base of a strong nonprofit consists of a diverse group of people, all with different needs and expectations. Segmenting your donors is a critical step in identifying where donors fall on the matrix and ensuring targeted and effective stewardship. 

Donors can generally be categorized according to their giving frequency or level, including: 

• New donors: First-time contributors to your organization. 
• Recurring donors: Those who give monthly, quarterly, annually, or at another consistent frequency. 
• Mid-level donors: Those who give more than the average gift but less than a major gift. 
• Major donors: Those who make the largest gifts your nonprofit receives. 
• Planned giving donors: Those who include your nonprofit in their estate plans, wills, or other long-term financial plans. 

You don’t have to stop there! Break your donors into any segments that make sense. For example, you might be planning an in-person event and want to segment your donors based on where they live. You could be looking for major gift donors and choose to segment your donor by wealth indicators. Similarly, if you are seeking gifts of stock, you would want to segment your donors according to their investment holdings. 

A robust nonprofit CRM means you can segment and re-segment your donors quickly and easily as your needs change. 

Identify Key Stewardship Activities

More than throwing ideas out in a meeting, planning key stewardship activities ahead of time ensures consistent and meaningful touchpoints. 

Consider including a mix of engagement opportunities and donor recognition efforts in your matrix. This way, your nonprofit balances the request to continue giving with gratitude for what they’ve contributed already. 

Here are some general activity ideas to include: 

• Personalized thank-you messages 
• Regular organizational updates 
• Impact reports 
• Recognition milestones 
• Exclusive content 
• Event invitations 

Solid fundraising software, or a nonprofit CRM, can help you organize and implement these activities when the time is right. CharityEngine explains that the right donor management platform will also include a suite of fundraising tools. This enables your nonprofit to evaluate donor data and implement your stewardship matrix, all using the same solution.

Assign Communication Roles

Reaching out to donors is a critical part of stewarding them, which means you’ll need strong communication strategies in place to effectively grab their attention. 

The Donor Stewardship Matrix is not just a tool for segmenting donors; it’s also a guide for assigning stewardship responsibilities across the nonprofit team. Here are some ideas of how key communication roles can develop: 

• An Executive Director can focus on major gift donors (High Giving/High Engagement) to build trust and demonstrate your nonprofit’s commitment to these key supporters. 
• A Major Gifts Officer can focus on High-Giving/Low-Engagement donors, trying to re-ignite interest and foster stronger engagement. 
• The Marketing Team might look at Low-Giving/High-Engagement donors and nurture these supporters to become more invested in your mission over time. 
• Program Staff can focus on Low-Giving/Low-Engagement donors and try to get them to volunteer or engage to move them up in the matrix. 

By aligning roles with specific donor segments, your organization can ensure a cohesive and consistent approach to building meaningful relationships. Plus, this prevents communication silos from occurring internally by reducing confusion and improving internal collaboration.

Map Donor Segments to Stewardship Actions

Another benefit of the matrix is that it helps you create a clear roadmap for donors at every level, connecting their segment to a role with stewardship responsibilities.  

Here are some considerations that can guide your matrix: 

• What actions can you take to retain first-time donors? 
• What will your nonprofit do after receiving a major gift? 
• How will you demonstrate impact to each donor group? 
• How will you move mid-level donors toward becoming major donors? 
• Which donor segment will most likely participate in your year-end giving campaign? 

If you want to refine your plan further, consider creating timelines for the stewardship activities. For example, standardize the timeline for activities after you receive a first-time gift: a multichannel sequence can establish communication with this new donor and automation can help you keep up with the workload.

Evaluate and Adjust Regularly

While it would be great if you could create the matrix once and be done, it will be most effective as a live document constantly evaluated and adjusted as donor behaviors and priorities evolve. 

To evaluate your matrix, monitor: 

• Donor retention rates 
• Fundraising progress 
• Engagement levels 
• Donor feedback 

Incorporate your donor stewardship matrix into your fundraising development plan to align your overall strategies. As you adjust your matrix or multi-year plan, your efforts will stay focused on your overall goals. 

A Donor Stewardship Matrix is an invaluable tool that helps nonprofits foster deeper engagement and long-term relationships with supporters. By examining and segmenting your donors, you can create personal strategies and communications, and aligning responsibilities across team members ensures consistent and meaningful interactions.  

As a result, your nonprofit will maximize donor retention and loyalty. This tool will streamline efforts, deepen donor connections, and empower your organization to have a greater impact on your mission. 

Looking for a Financial Advisor for Your Nonprofit?  

Finding the right investment advisor shouldn’t be overwhelming. At Carnegie Investment Counsel, we understand the unique challenges nonprofits face when securing their financial future. We’re here to bring clarity and expertise to the process. Schedule a complimentary consultation today! 

Disclaimer:

This blog is for informational purposes only and is not meant as financial, legal, or tax advice. Please seek professional advice from qualified tax, legal, and/or financial professionals before making any financial decisions.     

Carnegie Investment Counsel (“Carnegie”) is a registered investment adviser under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply a certain level of skill or training. For a more detailed discussion about Carnegie’s investment advisory services and fees, please view our Form ADV and Form CRS by visiting: https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/150488.