The Give and Take of Donor Relations: Investigating the Role Communicators Play in Successful Donor Giving Relationships

Businesses use sponsorships to engage a variety of stakeholder groups. How the spending of these sponsorship dollars is connected to the company strategy and measured has been widely researched from the perspective of the sponsoring business. Communications managers in not-for-profits and charities also need to understand how the organizations who sponsor them can benefit from the use of PR and communications to deliver a more valuable funding relationship and build lasing partnerships. This paper explores how the Executive Directors for not-for-profits and charities structure their donor communications in the Canadian agricultural sector. From the review of the literature and the interviews, three Best Management Practices are made.