In recent years, the UC Davis Annual and Special Gifts Program (ASGP) developed a comprehensive stewardship program that has increased overall annual donor-retention rates to 50.5% in FY23, a range well in keeping with national averages. Each summer, the ASGP team, Donor Relations, and Development Marketing Communications partner on a project: Together we choose a small specifically branded gift that can be mailed out to all donors who gave to UC Davis during the previous fiscal year. Budget and mailing restrictions very much limit our options, so creating a gift no easy task. We settled on custom UC Davis wrapping paper designed by a UC Davis student. The package includes a clever stewardship message (our donors are the “gift that keeps on giving”) that plays off the fact that we are sending them custom wrapping paper. Together with Repro Graphics, our UC Davis print house, we put together our impactful thank you. This project included several meetings regarding schedules, print production, paper quality, packaging, messaging, and mailing. All our efforts came together (with a bow) for one of our most successful and well-received stewardship pieces to date.
From the Judges
This is such a great campaign! The wrapping paper is a fun connection to philanthropy and the school. As donors, we'd be so excited to receive this as a token of appreciation. This is creative and beautiful stewardship—we love the old-school look too. It's something other institutions could implement.
