Stewardship That Pays: How Relationship-First Direct Mail Drives Long-Term Revenue at Scale

Many Direct Marketing programs still see stewardship as a cost center. Habitat for Humanity has proven otherwise—at scale. In this session learn how Habitat affords to mail 4–6 non-appeal stewardship-specific mailings, plus ongoing acknowledgements, calls, and emails – and keeps CPDR down.

Like many nonprofits, Habitat saw an increase in Direct Marketing gifts and revenue in 2020 and 2021 as attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. As time passed, retaining these donors proved challenging. Habitat implemented numerous measures in 2024 and 2025 which helped improve their overall donor retention 4.2% year-over-year in 2025. Leslie Willeford, Associate Director of Donor Development at Habitat, oversaw development of these initiatives and will share successes – and failures – which might help your organization retain more donors, too.

We'll discuss the long-term impact of stewardship on donor retention and how we utilize stewardship to see the donor as more than their wallet. With the rise of digital printing and hyper-personalization, we'll see how localized campaigns deepen a donor's emotional ROI as well. We'll also see examples of stewardship-appeal hybrid campaigns, where the focus is on the donor and their impact, while softly asking for continued support. And we will unpack learnings from prior tests that prove the value of both stewardship and solicitation - working in unison, not in competition.

Key Take-Aways:

• Justifying stewardship expense as a worthwhile investment in donor value
• Soft-appeal campaigns that can deepen connection, while still generating strong response
• Personalization at scale: enabling meaningful, impact-driven engagement across multiple audiences 

Speaker:

• Leslie Willeford, Associate Director, Donor Development, Habitat for Humanity International

ACCESSIBILITY

We will provide automated transcription at this event. If you need additional accommodations, please contact Risa Sudnow at info@dmfa.org or 646-675-7314.

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