Impact Communication

Impact Communication

Communicating impact demonstrates our steadfast commitment to providing accurate and meaningful information about how the donor has contributed to the advancement of Illinois’ mission. At Illinois, we use these activities to strengthen relationships and cultivate future gifts. When done well, these communications demonstrate that Illinois is fulfilling donor expectations and intent. Impact communication strategy should be consistent within the unit (i.e., all major gift donors should expect the same level of reporting.)

Impact Communication vs. Impact Report: Impact communication refers to any form of communication aimed at conveying the impact of giving. An impact report is a formal document that provides a detailed overview of the impact of a donor or fund. Several types of impact communications are sent to donors throughout the year, with an impact report being one type of impact communication.  

Strategies 

Guidelines:  

  • Every donor, regardless of gift amount, should receive impact communication from the benefiting unit annually.
    • As of FY23, OVCIA Strategic Engagement works with units to produce annual impact pages as a baseline standardized impact communication for all units for donors in the previous fiscal year. These should be used to supplement/complement unit stewardship strategy.
    • All funds should be reported on for as long as donors are living and funds are active.
      • For donor-established current use funds, impact should be communicated until the fund is depleted. If no further gifts are expected, the fund should then be closed
      • For annual/general funds with the expectation of immediate or complete spending each year, impact should be communicated at least to the prior year’s donors.
      • For endowment funds, impact should be communicated as soon as funds are generating sufficient income to be spent. Units may wish to send more generalized impact communications prior to funds reaching endowment level.
  • The depth, detail, design, and delivery method of the impact communication will vary based on donor, gift size, and gift type. Types of communications may include: 
    • Mass communication, non-personalized (for annual funds, large unrestricted scholarships, etc.)
    • Personalized templated reports (based on specific endowed funds with individual recipients) 
    • Comprehensive reports, custom tailored to donor (for lifetime giving, multi-unit reports, etc.) 

Things to take into consideration before creating impact communication pieces:   

  • Review the fund/s with your business office to confirm how the fund/s has been spent.  
  • Review previous impact communications sent to the donor/s.   
  • Determine who should be involved in creating the impact report, including collecting content and reviewing. This may include department heads, business managers, faculty, Mar/Com staff, Principal Gifts staff, etc.  
  • Review donor communication preferences to determine in what format communications should be created and delivered, including the appropriate voice of the sender/deliverer.  
  • Only include data points in reports that are verified by UIF, DMI, or other reporting agencies.
  • When sharing student information with donors, confirm that the student has given permission to do so. Undergraduate students complete a form that asks for their permission when they choose to accept their offer of admission. If a student agrees, a 1009 Scholarship Release attribute will be put on their record in Banner on the SGASADD screen.
  • When beginning to plan an impact reporting strategy, consider prioritizing donors with named funds or those with lifetime giving of $25K+ to the unit.
  • Planned gifts can be difficult to steward, since we have not yet received those funds. Consider sharing the impact of funds with similar purposes to the planned gift, or the impact of other funds established by realized planned gifts.

Types of impact communication: 

Constituency-based Communication and Reporting 

While every donor is different, similar traits give us the opportunity to develop constituency-based mass communications that report the impact of philanthropy. Examples of constituencies include annual fund donors, and leadership annual giving donors.  

Some examples of these kinds of tactics include:  

  • OVCIA’s Annual Unit Impact Pages 
  • Impact stories  
  • Impact reports or more general emails on specific type/area of philanthropy (scholarships, endowments)  
  • Campaign/initiative reports  
  • Student calling programs, card drives 

 Individualized Communication and Reporting 

Individualized impact reporting can help transform major and principal gift donor relations from reactive to proactive. Because of the resource-intensive nature of creating individualized impact reports, units should establish consistent strategies for determining which donors should receive these highly personalized communications. 

These tactics should be established in the stewardship plan and might include:  

  • Personal meetings with students/beneficiaries  
  • Outbound donor relations visits by advancement professionals and academic leaders  
  • Financial reporting like the Annual Endowment Statements
    • UIF annually sends an enhanced, customized annual endowment statement to all endowment donors, which includes endowment balance, endowment value, unit-specific information about the fund’s impact within the unit (branded to the unit).
  • Professionally produced, individualized reports by fund or donor
    • Regardless of fund type, these reports should contain specific information related to the impact of that fund and the people impacted. This may include collecting content from scholarship or fellowship recipients, chair holders, deans and department heads, business managers, etc.
      • Note that student participation is not mandatory, and cannot have any impact on their eligibility for financial aid or scholarship renewal. It is our job as advancement professionals to communicate gratitude from the institution to our donors, whether a student is willing/able to participate or not.
      • These include both annual impact reports as well as more specialized/custom one-off reports developed as part of a larger strategic purpose (e.g. to celebrate a large gift or a donor milestone, set up the next ask, etc.).

Resources