EverTrue TV Ep 1: Social Donor Management Overview

Courtney Petrouski
09/12/2014

Welcome to the first episode of EverTrue TV!

Through our ongoing video series, our founder and CEO Brent Grinna—and other guests along the way—will be exploring the emerging methodology of social donor management and how it can streamline your work in advancement to make you (and ultimately your team) more efficient and productive.

Watch the video below for an introduction to social donor management and its three pillars: build, understand, and ask. For a more in depth look at each pillar, catch the rest of the series here: Ep 2: Build, Ep 3: Understand, and Ep 4: Ask.

Full Video Transcript

Every nonprofit wants to know more about its current and potential donors. Especially big donors. And you’ve worked really hard to keep donor information up-to-date in your traditional database. But over the last few years, donor information has shifted from those systems to networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. By connecting the dots between internal donor data and external social data, you create a massive opportunity for your nonprofit. We call that social donor management.

There are three core elements of social donor management that we’re going to dig into in the coming months: build, understand, ask.

First, build. Most nonprofits already have a great foundation for social donor management. If your organization has a LinkedIn group, Facebook page, or Twitter account, you’re already off to a good start.

Second, understand. Once you’ve built your audience, it’s important to segment and understand that audience in relation to your donor database. By analyzing both internal data and external social data, you can easily identify donors who can support your mission.

Third, ask. Once you’ve built an audience you understand, you can equip your team to be more efficient, make better asks, and raise more money.

Now, I know what you might be thinking: Are big donors really on these social networks? Yes! Everyone’s on these networks. And we’ll dive more into that next time.

Check out EverTrue TV Ep 2, “Build,” to learn about the second pillar of social donor management!

Endowment Spending & Growth Calculator

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4. Continue to Steward Donors

Your relationship with the donors who give to your endowment doesn’t end when you secure their gifts. Because your endowment exists to make a difference in the long term, your supporters will want you to keep in touch about its progress. Ongoing stewardship means keeping donors updated about your endowment’s performance and impact. A report that strengthens your relationship with donors should cover:

The fund’s balance at the start and end of the year
Spending amounts and allocations
How the fund’s returns compare to your investment targets
A short narrative detailing the specific impacts the endowment achieved

Create a report for each endowment rather than sending an identical document to everyone. A donor who endowed a scholarship wants to hear about the students it supported, while a donor who endowed a building fund wants updates on construction projects.

5. Upgrade Your Endowment Management Tools

Your endowment management tools should make applying your spending policy across every fund easy. Investing in dedicated software is especially useful as your endowment grows. Handling unitization in spreadsheets might work for a few funds, but as you begin to manage dozens or hundreds of gifts, dedicated software can save your team time spent manually calculating gains and losses for each one.

Why Nonprofits Need Dedicated Endowment Management Software

Dedicated endowment software brings accuracy and consistency to every part of the management process, from tracking individual funds to improving security. See how these solutions compare to a spreadsheet-based approach:

nfographic table outlining the information below.

How These Methods Compare:

In managing your endowment with traditional spreadsheets, you may see:

High administrative burden: Manual entry across disconnected systems
Limited security and audit footprints: Reduced version control and audit trail visibility
Difficulty with donor transparency: Spreadsheets provide only static data that is difficult to turn into custom results.

By using dedicated software, you are likely to find the following improvements:

Lower administrative burden: Automated fund tracking and calculated allocations
Enhanced security and audit footprint: Audit-ready reconciliation with clear tracking
Greater donor transparency: Connects with reporting platforms

Dedicated endowment management software keeps your organization compliant while freeing up the time your team once spent manually managing spreadsheets.

Secure Your Endowment with Balance by EverTrue

Effective endowment management begins with excellent accounting. Balance by EverTrue handles unitization, applies spending rules, and produces audit-ready reports, so your team can spend more time on the donor relationships that built the fund in the first place.

Turn your data into a clear picture of long-term impact. Combine accurate fund accounting with donor reporting that showcases impact.
Connect with the tools you already use. Pair Balance with Impact by EverTrue and ODDER by EverTrue to create and deliver compelling digital endowment reports that you can send to donors with ease.
Know where every fund stands in real time. Check market values, gift history, and available spending for any fund. Then, share view-only versions with your team, so everyone stays informed.

With Balance, your team can stop spending all your time on manual management and instead add balance to your endowment workflow.

Additional Resources

To learn more about managing your endowment and other ways that technology can help your organization, check out these additional resources:

Webinar: Building a Seamless Relationship Between Endowment Finance and Advancement. In this webinar, we cover the keys to un-complicating your institution’s financial endowment reporting process. Explore how building a connection between your finance and advancement teams can lead to happier donors and happier staff.
The Best Alumni Management Software Solutions in 2026. Alumni management software allows your university to maintain an active community that supports your school in a number of ways. Review top software solutions.
Donor Segmentation: How Organizing Donors Boosts Retention. What is donor segmentation, and how can you use it to boost retention? Learn the need-to-know information in this guide from EverTrue’s fundraising experts.

Less stress, higher endowment funds. Discover how Balance provides the organization, security, and accuracy your endowment needs. Request a demo.

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