Dear Donor, Will You Be Mine? Stewardship To Transform Donors Into Valentines

Valentine’s Day is a great excuse to deliver thoughtful stewardship to your donors.

While your donors may be expecting their partner to recognize this particular holiday, they certainly don’t have any expectations that the nonprofits they support will. This is a golden opportunity to catch their attention, stand out from the crowd, and make them feel special.

Delighting donors when they don’t expect it has a ‘shock and awe’ element that can make your thoughtfulness feel especially meaningful and memorable.

Wondering what you can do? Below are some email templates and stewardship examples to inspire you.

How to write a stewardship email

We have two goals with our stewardship email: the first is to get it opened, and the second is to make the donor feel like the hero they are for generously supporting us.

Winning subject lines

You have to catch your donors’ attention to get them to open your email. It’s going to take personality to stand out like a rainbow unicorn in a sea of bland, beige emails! Here are some subject lines you can try:

• We’re in love with %firstname% 💗💕
• Why everyone at [org name] loves %firstname%
• I don’t normally do this …
• OMG 🥰
• For your eyes 👀 only %firstname%
• Valentine love inside (chocolates 💝not included)
• This could put a smile on your face …
• A love story
• I made you a video!
• I wrote you a poem
• P.S. I love you
• Love potion inside 🧪

Email stewardship templates you can use now

The best emails are targeted (meaning they’re properly segmented and personalized), creative, and thoughtful. Your stewardship email could be as simple as an “I thought you’d like to see what your support made possible” story, or about how grateful you are to your donor.

Stewardship email with donor impact story

Dear %Firstname%,

This Valentine’s Day, I’m thinking about you and your loving heart.

For Jenna, you were a lifeline. When Jenna came to the [org name] she was fleeing her abusive boyfriend. She was facing the holidays alone and pregnant, with nowhere to turn.

Thanks to you, Jenna was welcomed into [org name], and she found refuge in a cozy, safe room of her own.

Because of your kindness, she got the therapy, medical care, and parenting classes she needed and delivered a happy, healthy baby boy.

Now Jenna is enrolled in community college, studying to be a nurse. Thanks to your support, she’ll be able to give her son a bright future.

Your love and compassion for women like Jenna says everything about your generous and caring heart.

This Valentine’s Day, and every day, we celebrate you for saving lives and making the world a better place.

Your fan,

Insert name here and personal signature

Stewardship email with no story

This Valentine’s Day, I wanted to ask you something.

Do you know how amazing you are, %firstname%?

All of us here at [org name] know.

We know you care. (A lot!)

We know you make a difference every day.

We know your kind and generous heart is full of love for [insert mission or beneficiaries here].

Without you, the lives of [insert beneficiaries here, for example, homeless, abandoned, and neglected animals] in our community would look very different.

As you go about this holiday and every day, I hope you feel joy in your heart. Joy in knowing you matter. That your compassion is [insert mission here, for example, saving lives]. That you inspire me and everyone here at  [insert org name here] every day to keep fighting the good fight.

You make miracles happen.

Thanks for being our hero!

Your #1 fan,

Insert name here and personal signature

Creative stewardship ideas

Send your donors a Valentine’s thank you text.

Memory Fox offers a 12-month set of Canva templates you can download, ready for you to drop in your photos and videos.

Take a group photo of your staff sporting red and pink Valentine colors, heart-shaped glasses, candy heart cutouts, or other photo props to send by email or text as a thank you.

Valentine stewardship examples