As the creator of DonorRelationsGuru.com, an online resource for stewardship and other development professionals, I'm regularly asked for advice on donor relations challenges. Among the most common: "My supervisor says Non-profit X is doing (insert horrible practice here) and that we should do it, too."

Another institution's tactic isn't necessarily a best practice or even a good fit for your organization's needs. Yet bad stewardship ideas continue to resurface. Frequent flops include inserting a business reply envelope with magazines or annual reports, including a giving link with updates or impact reports, and "thasking," combining a thank you with an ask. Remember, the No. 1 reason a donor does not give again is oversolicitation.

So why do we recycle poor tactics? It's often easier to reuse something old than to try something new. Some of us in donor relations don't push for innovation in stewardship, because we feel inferior to fundraisers; we think we aren't valuable because we don't raise money. But here's the bigger problem: Donors' needs are changing, and donor relations needs to evolve.

If we want to maximize stewardship to help boost fundraising, transform donor relations, and give donors what they truly want, we must take risks, challenge old assumptions, and use data to determine best and next practices.

Flip tradition on its head

How do you get out of a recycling rut and show donors their importance to your institution? Scrutinize your operations by asking these four questions:

1. If you were building a shop from scratch, would you employ this practice? 2. Does it benefit the donor? 3. Is there a way to measure the success of this initiative? 4. If we eliminate it, will donors stop giving?

Such an exercise led Roberta O'Hara, senior director of donor relations at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, to rethink how the institution would thank 130,000 donors to its Our Rutgers, Our Future campaign. Her thought was "Don't list the donors, list the beneficiaries. But don't just list them: Give them a voice." Instead of cataloging each donor in the final campaign report, she listed 100 beneficiaries-from scholarship recipients to endowed professors-of donor generosity. The "reverse honor roll" recognized donors by detailing the impact their gift had on real people.

"No one missed having a traditional honor roll," O'Hara says. "We strategically featured donors by picking beneficiaries linked to funds from individuals who were instrumental to the campaign's success. We featured all four campuses, highlighted all the priorities of the campaign, and let the beneficiaries tell how the campaign made a difference to them. The reverse honor roll was only one feature of the online campaign end report, but it hit so many points, and it was very well received."

Challenge old assumptions

Conventional wisdom holds that older donors prefer to receive appeals, annual reports, and other communication in the mail. However, donors over 65 are just as likely as younger donors to contribute to charity online, according to a Dunham+Company/Campbell Rinker study. Nearly 60 percent of the elderly access the Internet—71 percent on a daily basis—and the number who use social media has more than tripled since 2010, according to the Pew Research Center. Creative professionals think digital and mobile first, taking into account donors' online experiences and needs to meet them where they are.

Washington's Gonzaga University, for example, released its annual impact report to donors on Instagram in 2015 (instagram.com/gonzagagiving). This enabled the institution to avoid the significant cost of printing and mailing 12,000 reports, provide a new window into impact, and track how the online report was received.

The report comprised the first 18 posts to the @GonzagaGiving Instagram account, which then became a "living" document, growing with more photos and examples of gratitude and support. Promoted on various social media platforms, the report garnered 12,160 impressions, likes, comments, and shares via Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and the Gonzaga Giving blog.

Ask donors what they want

Do you still have a donor honor roll? Is it because a solitary donor (out of how many?) gushed about seeing his name in print? Too often, donor relations shops base decisions on anecdotes, but surveys reveal that donors don't care for honor rolls. That outdated tool wastes invaluable reporting and human resources and never effectively tells the impact of philanthropy at an organization. North Carolina State and Yeshiva universities are among numerous institutions to do away with them with no complaints.

Organizations that solicit feedback from supporters can develop strategies based on facts. Whitworth University in Washington changed from monetary-based stewardship to behavior-based donor relations as a result of constituent survey data. Donors said that they wanted to be treated unique to who they were, not just based on how much they gave. As a result, the donor relations team created a communication plan centered on donor behavior: first-time givers, loyal donors, reacquired lapsed donors, and contributors who up their giving significantly. A first-time donor receives a welcome postcard within 30 days of the gift, then a phone call from a student, and then a handwritten note from a student, cabinet member, or volunteer.

Loyal donors get gift receipts documenting the number of years of their consecutive support, and after three years they earn recognition in a giving society. Reacquired donors receive notes welcoming them back and letting them know they were missed.

The survey revealed that Whitworth's donors don't care as much about being recognized for their giving as they do about knowing the impact of their dollars. The survey, which will be repeated after three years, also propelled the institution to make a greater commitment to donor relations by creating new positions and new ways of showing donor impact.

And it stopped thasking. Donors know how to give; an organization doesn't have to ask at every turn. Giving a donor room to breathe and time to learn about a gift's impact is powerful.