Con­sid­er­a­tions for Devel­op­ing a Donor Recog­ni­tion Display

How to Design a Donor Recog­ni­tion Dis­play Program

Our Design-Build process is unlike any oth­er. At Lat­i­tude Sig­nage + Design, you will be sup­port­ed by an inte­grat­ed team that includes plan­ners, design­ers, man­u­fac­tur­ers, and installers. But before propos­ing a donor recog­ni­tion dis­play, it is impor­tant to under­stand what your sig­nage man­u­fac­tur­er needs to know to pro­duce your dis­play just the way you want it.

Design Cri­te­ria: a Dis­play With Impact.

The design of the wall has infi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties, but spe­cif­ic cri­te­ria need to be addressed to help make it suc­cess­ful. A key ele­ment of any donor recog­ni­tion wall is the sta­tus of the giv­ing campaign.

• A Sta­t­ic dis­play is where the recog­ni­tion wall and the cam­paign is com­plet­ed and no oth­er names will be added.
• A Dynam­ic dis­play is intend­ed to add names to the orig­i­nal dis­play. A dynam­ic wall usu­al­ly has more com­plex require­ments and plan­ning to allow for growth over time.

The loca­tion of the wall needs to be care­ful­ly con­sid­ered appro­pri­ate and promi­nent. It needs to have enough room to grow if it’s a dynam­ic dis­play. Are there oth­er ele­ments, along with the names, that are often includ­ed in the dis­play? Often, the gift cam­paign has a name. In addi­tion, a para­graph or two describ­ing the nature of the cam­paign or express­ing grat­i­tude is help­ful — espe­cial­ly for an ongo­ing, dynam­ic cam­paign display.

Estab­lish­ing the dis­play’s ​“look” is prob­a­bly the most sub­jec­tive part of the design process. One approach is to cre­ate a look that reflects the unique archi­tec­tur­al fea­tures of its envi­ron­ment, the brand, and the donor contributions.

Prop­er­ly Rec­og­niz­ing Pro­gram Participants

Deter­mine how the donors will be iden­ti­fied. Either by name, gift amount, loca­tion, or spe­cif­ic consideration.

This infor­ma­tion should be pro­vid­ed in an elec­tron­ic for­mat, such as a spreadsheet.

Names and oth­er text require­ments should be placed in the elec­tron­ic file exact­ly as it will appear on the dis­play wall.

Estab­lish Gift Amount Documentation

There are three typ­i­cal approach­es to doc­u­ment donor contributions:

• No ref­er­ence of a gift amount on the wall, treat­ing all names equal­ly, or in the same manner.
• Group names with giv­ing cat­e­gories by gift amounts (for exam­ple: $100 — $500, $5,000 to $10,000) or by iden­ti­fy­ing with a title (such as Leaders/​Associates, or Bronze/​Gold)
• Recog­ni­tion amounts can also be indi­cat­ed by increas­ing name size, plaque size on the display.
• A min­i­mum gift size should be estab­lished. Rec­og­niz­ing small amounts will add cost and size of the display.

Donor Recog­ni­tion Dis­play Project Budget

In most cas­es, the funds avail­able for the recog­ni­tion dis­play will deter­mine whether or not the dis­play is sta­t­ic or dynam­ic, with sta­t­ic usu­al­ly being less cost­ly. In gen­er­al, a dynam­ic style design will require a greater pro­por­tion of the bud­get to be ded­i­cat­ed to cre­at­ing the means of future updat­ing. Real­is­tic expec­ta­tions of mate­ri­als and detail­ing will help to keep the project with­in budget.