Hyper-Personal Stewardship at Scale Without Burning Out Your Team
Scaling Major Gifts. Strategies, action steps, and ideas for scaling major gifts by Tammy Zonker, Major Gift Expert & Keynote Speaker.
You and your team feel the pull in two directions.
Donors expect personal attention.
Leadership expects scale.
And your staff is tired.
Every nonprofit is feeling this tension as donor expectations rise and teams run lean. Personalized stewardship still matters most, yet doing it for dozens or hundreds of donors feels impossible. Especially when every new automation tool promises ease, but adds setup and management time.
Let’s simplify.
What to focus on next week
Start with donor memory, not volume. Donors remember how they felt, not how many emails or notes they received. Emotion, timing, and relevance drive lasting connection.
Segment your stewardship. Create three tiers of attention. Reserve your highest-touch expressions for your top 25 to 50 relationships. Use mid-level gestures for your loyal core. Automate baseline messages for everyone else.
Automate the essentials only. Use automation for reminders, thank-you confirmations, and quarterly impact updates. Let humans handle the moments that matter most.
Protect your high-touch hours. Schedule stewardship blocks on your calendar to stay intentional. Treat them like important donor visits.
Map one quarter at a time. Build a three-month stewardship plan for your top donors. Link each name to one emotional moment or update that shows care.
This approach blends heart and discipline. It keeps donor care authentic, and your team focused on the relationships that deliver the greatest impact.
A quick story
Last fall, I coached a mid-sized organization that managed 300 major donors with a 4-person team. They were sending the same email newsletters to everyone and feeling discouraged. We built a three-tier system. The top 40 donors each received a handwritten note or short video message tied to their gift purpose. The mid-tier received quarterly update emails personalized by segment. Everyone else received an automated thank-you sequence that linked to stories of impact.
Donor thank-you replies tripled within six weeks. Retention rose nearly 11%. The team felt proud again, not drained. They could see which touches built deeper connection, and automation stopped being the enemy.
Try this next week
Choose one tier. Select 25 key donors due a personal touch this quarter.
Add a trigger. Use your CRM or email tool to set reminders for when to send notes or videos. Let automation manage the timing, so you focus on the message.
Batch record gratitude videos. Use a tool like BombBomb or HeyGen to film quick 20-second thanks, one afternoon per month. Send them individually through email with a personal line.
These small, repeatable actions protect your energy while deepening donor trust. The secret is not doing more. It is doing the right touches consistently.
Want to take a deeper dive?
In this week’s Intentional Fundraiser Podcast episode, “Making Stewardship Personal, Scalable, Sustainable,” I dig into how to design a stewardship map that’s manageable and meaningful. You’ll learn how to segment your donors, decide what automation supports your mission, and protect calendar time for what matters most.
I’d love to hear from you
How does your team manage personal stewardship without overwhelm? Connect with me on LinkedIn and tell me one system or habit that helps you stay on top of it. I might share your idea (with permission) in an upcoming newsletter.
You give so much of your heart to this work. Remember, meaningful stewardship doesn’t require more hours. It requires more intention.
Keep scaling,
Tammy Zonker
Author of Calling All Heroes
Founder of Fundraising Transformed
President of Modern Institute for Charitable Giving