Donor Communications
One of the highlights from my internship at the University of Iowa Center for Advancement
Presidential Acknowledgement Templates
​
One big project I worked on during my internship was drafting the templates that will be used for acknowledgement letters from UICA President Lynette Marshall and University of Iowa President Barbara Wilson.
​
A key part of this project involved gaining a strong understanding of how the stewardship services team crafts presidential acknowledgement letters. I had the opportunity to observe the full acknowledgement letter process — from the moment a gift is announced to when the team sends the letter off for review. These acknowledgement letter templates serve as the foundation for the stewardship services team to efficiently draft and send personalized gift acknowledgement letters from the UICA and university's leadership, tailoring them to the area the gift supports and the donor.
​
As part of this effort, I drafted new opening and closing language for the letters for the upcoming calendar year and created customized paragraphs for 15 different areas across campus, ranging from the arts to health care. These templates are designed to be easily copied and pasted into letter drafts, shared with the appropriate development officer and ultimately sent to Lynette or President Wilson's offices.
​
This project required careful attention to avoiding repeating language from letters used in the past while also maintaining consistency with past communications. It gave me the opportunity to learn about the wide range of campus area while applying my writing skills in a creative yet strategic way.
.png)
Neubauer Impact Report ​
​
Clubfoot is a treatable birth defect in which a baby's foot is twisted inward and down. Approximately 150,000 - 200,000 children are born with clubfoot each year, and the University of Iowa is recognized as the leader in one of its treatments, the Ponseti method. The Ponseti method is a nonsurgical treatment for clubfoot that uses plaster casts to correct the foot's position, which can be seen on the cover of the report. The Neubauer Fellowship allows orthopedic surgeons from across the United States and in Canada to study and practice the Ponseti method under
Dr. Jose Morcuende, whose mentor developed the method.
​
This is an example of extra stewardship that was requested by the Neubauer Foundation for their needs. My goal was to elevate the report from prior years by providing quantitative and qualitative evidence of impact, compared to the more numbers-based reports in the past. I used Canva to design this report and worked with a development officer on the Healthcare Philanthropy team to compile testimonials from past program trainees, provide financial documentation, and include biographies on surgeons scheduled to participate in the program in the next fiscal year.