FIELD GUIDE 01 / STEWARDSHIP
Who Promised What?
RESEARCH & PRACTICEAn agreed work queue with owners, dates, and blockers
Leave with a short, owned list of work the team can complete before the next meeting.
A donor can receive plenty of communication while a specific promise goes unfulfilled. Start the meeting with what the team owes people: an answer, an introduction, a report, a correction, or a next conversation. Review the work that needs a decision, not every activity logged in the CRM.
Triage obligations first
Spend five minutes on missed promises, unresolved concerns, and deadlines in the next seven days. Confirm whether each item is a real obligation, a useful opportunity, or work that can wait. A large gift alone does not outrank an unresolved concern.
Make the next action observable
Replace ‘follow up with donor’ with a specific action such as ‘confirm whether the donor wants the program update by email and record the answer.’ Assign one owner. Name a reviewer separately when needed.
Resolve the blocker
Use ten minutes for decisions. If a report is waiting on program data, name the person who will obtain it and a date to check again. If it cannot be resolved here, assign an escalation. Moving a due date is a decision; record why.
Fit the work to available time
Use five minutes to compare the work with time actually available after meetings, leave, and fixed duties. Include preparation, review, and recording time. If the queue is too large, reduce scope or defer an item explicitly.
Close the loop
Read back the commitments in the final five minutes. At the next meeting, close an item only when there is a completion date and a link or note showing the result. A draft is complete only if drafting was the agreed task.
Put it to work
Suggested session: 25 minutes each week. Bring the relevant records and allow additional time for preparation and delivery.
- Bring promises made in recent conversations, open donor questions, upcoming reporting commitments, and work carried over from last week.
- Link to the existing donor or organization record. Keep sensitive relationship notes in the system where access is controlled.
- Ask each owner to update status before the meeting. Invite a decision-maker who can resolve priorities or reduce scope.
Choose one recent donor promise. Check what is already in place; the remaining items become your next work.
6 items to confirm
- Recover the exact promise from the conversation or message.
- Agree one owner for the next action.
- Record the original deadline and a date to check progress.
- Name who will provide each missing fact or approval.
- Decide what record will prove the promise was fulfilled.
- Assign who will update the donor if timing changes.
Editable template
When the plan changes
- Owner away: assign a named substitute and make the handoff explicit.
- Sensitive concern: keep the queue description minimal and move the conversation to the appropriate private setting.
- Waiting on someone else: retain an owner and a next check date; ‘waiting’ is not an owner.
- Repeated carryover: change the scope, dependency, or priority instead of silently rolling the same date forward.
What finished looks like
- Every selected item has one owner and a due date.
- Every blocked item has a next check or escalation.
- The team has explicitly deferred work it cannot carry.
- Completed items record the result, not just an attempted activity.
See whether it helps
Track items due, items completed by their due date, and items still blocked. Compare the same definition each week. Keep changed due dates visible so rescheduling does not make performance look better.
Reading connection: the stewardship coordination role in Trevor and Tarren Bragdon’s 7-Figure Fundraising. This meeting structure and work queue are original Gratona tools.
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