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A New Way to "Spread the Love", A Journey on Stewardship and Relationships Within Our Community!

Sarah Overbaugh

Wednesday, September 21
3:30 – 4:30 PM (MT) 

My Vice President came to me one day and put me in charge of finding a new home for our old and new periodicals and swag from our Foundation Department. This involved pre-pandemic event items, such as glass jars, plastic cups, golf gloves, fishing shirts, etc. along with several editions of our latest magazine, The Perspective. I was tasked with getting these out into the communities of Pasco and Hernando county, the two counties of the six locations that Pasco-Hernando State College serves. We put our thinking caps on and came up with a creative stewardship event to our unused items into our donors' hands, which we coined "PHSC Spreads the Love Van Day". We strategically selected our event date to coincide with the release of our spring Perspective magazine. Our event team was made of several of our Foundation team members, our college's recruiters, and two highly engaged student representatives. Once we confirmed our donor and community business stops of Pasco and Hernando counties, we created personalized stewardship packages. We reserved a PHSC van and filled it with items to help "Spread the Love" from our college to the community. We took donor pictures along the way and posted them instantly on our social media outlets. Our donors loved receiving our magazines to showcase in their businesses, fun PHSC swag, and our most recent college updates in person. This event provided us with many donor tips, suggestions, and leads that we might not have ever received. "PHSC Spreads the love Van Day" was such a success, that we decided to make it a bi-annual event to commence shortly after our spring and fall magazine releases going forward. We tweaked our fall van day with creative improvements and hope to make each one better and better. Our periodicals are still seen among the community members we visited.

Learning Objectives

•  By attending this session participants will learn strategies to utilize budget-friendly items within their department to creatively steward their donors and potential donors. 

• By attending this session participants will learn how to collaborate with various constituents (departments, co-workers, and donors) to organize an annual stewardship and donor relations event.

• By attending this session participants will learn tactics to promote their stewardship and donor relations events on social media and document important information along the way.

Keywords: 

Corporations & Foundations, Diversity & Culture, Donor Experience, Donor Retention, Events, Foundational Elements of Donor Relations, Individualized Stewardship Plans, Scholarships, Social Media

Who Should Attend?
	Private College/University, Public College/University, Private Secondary School, Healthcare, Religious Organization, Arts Organization, Foundation, Environmental Organization, Advocacy Organization, Social Services, Other non-profit	Suitable for any size shop	Suitable for all levels