Harrison, V. “Understanding the Donor Experience: Applying Stewardship Theory to Higher Education Donors.” Public Relations Review 44 (2018): 533–548.
CENTRAL TAKEAWAY
Donors, especially those who make large donations once or several times to an institution, need to feel respected by the institutions. This involves carefully listening to the needs and desires of the donors and demonstrating that their perspectives can have an impact on the institution.
SUMMARY
In an era of declining public confidence in higher education, many institutions are increasingly turning to private donations as a vital source of financial support. This study investigates how successful relationships between donors and institutions are instantiated, what factors make a difference to donor satisfaction and behavior, and what institutions can do to best ensure that private donations remain a strong source of support in the long term.
The researchers approach their investigation in relationship management theory, which they define as considering that “the balancing of interests of organizations and publics is achieved through the management of organization-public relationships” (p. 534). The strength and shape of these organization-public relationships (or OPRs) can be assessed through measuring a range of OPR outcomes: trust, commitment, satisfaction, control mutuality, stewardship, and involvement. Stewardship theory is then used to guide the interpretation of the differing mixes of these outcomes and their interrelationships for different kinds of donors. Stewardship theory, in brief, argues that the final and most powerful step in an organization-public relationship involves creating an ongoing conversational relationship in which each party tries to meet the other’s needs and expectations, and in which feedback loops are created between them in order to further modify and iterate upon these expectations. There are several stewardship strategies that institutions can employ by focusing on achieving a particular mix of OPR outcomes.
To examine the broader question of how institutional relationship focuses may shape donor experiences and behavior, the authors selected a single large institution in the Northeast United States that possessed a broad range of donor relationships. Carefully drawing a representative sample from their donor lists, the authors gathered information from 1,709 donors. They then divided these donors into three distinct categories: annual donors who provided lower amounts of funds to the school on a yearly basis (i.e., not exceeding $50,000 total per year), single endowment donors who provided a large sum of money to the institution at once (i.e., at least $20,000), and multiple endowment donors who provided two or more such gifts. They investigated the differences between what OPR outcomes each donor group emphasized via appropriate one-way ANOVAs with Bonferroni adjusted post-hoc contrasts. They then used path analysis in a structural equation modeling framework to investigate the relationships between each type of donor and each OPR outcome.
DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS
Factor analysis of the results suggests that stewardship is composed of three distinct strategies. First, respect, which encompasses the idea of understanding and listening to donors; second, reciprocity, which focuses on behaviors like sending thank you notes for donations, public acknowledgements of donations, and inviting donors to participate in events; and third, responsibility, which consists of behaviors and information demonstrating funds are used as the donor intended and are carefully spent. These factors showed acceptable reliability metrics, strong separability, and both divergent and convergent validity.
The researchers also found that donors who made major contributions had more trust in the university than those who made annual contributions, and those who made multiple major endowments similarly demonstrated more trust in the university than those who only gave one major endowment. With that said, there appeared to be no meaningful differences between different sorts of donors in terms of their commitment to the university, satisfaction with their relationship with it, and sense of mutual control over university funding.
Regarding the three stewardship strategies, a similar analysis was conducted that revealed that multiple endowment donors rated their experience of all three strategies (i.e., respect, reciprocity, and responsibility) more highly than those who gave a single large endowment, who rated them more highly than those who gave a smaller annual donation.
Turning away from how the three types of donors compare to each other and toward better understanding the relationships between each donor type and OPR outcomes, the researchers found that, for annual donors, the relationship is almost entirely driven by respect, with responsibility and reciprocity playing very weak roles in defining the relationship. This pattern was repeated for almost every OPR outcome.
Similarly, respect was extremely important for donors who made a single major gift to the institution. Responsibility did not predict any OPR outcome for this group; however, respect was a strong predictor of trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality, with reciprocity being a notable secondary predictor of the above outcomes.
Finally, donors who made multiple major contributions to the institution were also strongly influenced by respect, which was a significant predictor of all OPR outcomes. However, reciprocity seemed to have a smaller role for this group, as it did not predict control mutuality and had generally weaker relationships than for other donor groups. Contrarily, responsibility became more important, playing a role in establishing trust and in control mutuality.
IMPLICATIONS FOR ACTION BY CAMPUS LEADERS
Which stewardship strategies institutional leaders decide to pursue can make all the difference in how their donors perceive the relationship and the degree to which they are inclined to continue donating. These results indicate that CIC institutional leaders who refocus their stewardship strategy upon establishing a respectful relationship with donors may be able to strongly appeal to a broad range of current and potential donors.
That said, demonstrating accountability and reciprocity becomes increasingly important as donors begin to give larger amounts in a repeated fashion. Adjusting one’s stewardship strategy for such donors may lead to long-term boons for the institution, and to a deeper and richer relationship with such donors.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Virginia S. Harrison is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Clemson University.
RECOMMENDED FOLLOW-UP LITERATURE
Kelly, K. S. Effective Fundraising Management. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1998.
Sturtevant, W. T. The Continuing Journey: Stewardship and Useful Case Studies in Philanthropy. Chicago, IL: Bonus Books, 2001.