Natural Lands, the region’s oldest and largest land trust, operates in eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey to conserve open spaces, protect nature, and connect people with the outdoors. The organization’s core mission is driven by the principles of “Lands for Life” and “Nature for All.” Through decades of successful conservation work, Natural Lands has built a reputation as a trusted steward of the land, helping communities preserve vital natural areas for future generations.
Highlights
Addressing Staffing Gaps
The Natural Lands Development team is wholly dedicated to a donor-first approach across all fundraising efforts. A period of overlapping staff vacancies had the potential to disrupt the quality and timeliness of donor engagement, solicitation, and stewardship.
Fundraising Support Strategy
S&W would support Natural Lands’ front-line fundraising and donor engagement through operations leadership, database management, annual giving implementation, and membership fulfillment.
Staffing & Operations Solutions
When the work of fundraising needs to get done, but available staff are few, S&W provides the expertise and on-the-ground support which keeps donors engaged and operations moving.
The Challenge
Engaging, soliciting, thanking, stewarding—the donor cycle at every level needs to remain consistent to ensure that philanthropic revenue remains stable. When staff vacancies disrupt this work, a fundraising shop needs to consider:
- How to ensure a strategic focus on daily operations and the flow of accurate information required by a fast-paced fundraising team.
- How to keep up with the regular cadence of annual giving appeals, membership renewals, and donor acknowledgements.
- How to maintain data integrity and timeliness so that donors remain the daily priority.
The Solution
S&W StaffSolutions has the capacity to fill needs across Development with consultants who understand frontline, daily fundraising workflows and who have expertise in areas of staff management, operations, technology, and all stages of the donor pipeline.
When Natural Lands found itself in a unique situation, S&W provided the resources and knowledge to maintain the high level of services that the Development team and their donors were accustomed to receiving:
- Interim leadership for Development Services provided oversight of the Raiser’s Edge database and workflows, ensured that reporting remained on schedule, offered operations staff steady and reliable guidance, and gave departmental leadership the peace of mind that the fundraising operation would not falter.
- Trustworthy and expert Database Support ensured that data entry stayed accurate and timely and worked to maintain the regular cadence of the information that successful fundraising depends on.
- On the ground Annual Giving & Membership staffing sustained the steady rhythm of renewal and stewardship by managing the weekly acknowledgement and receipting process and assisting with the execution of mailings.
Explore Our Earlier Work
Our partnership with Natural Lands started with addressing critical staffing needs and providing operational solutions to maintain fundraising momentum. To learn more about how we helped Natural Lands navigate staffing gaps and strengthen their donor engagement, check out our earlier case study here.
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