Leave it Better Than You Found It
A bonus response to “Stop Keeping Records”
Mark Beenken is Gift Planner for Concordia College (Moorhead, MN). Mark and I have been friends since the early 1980’s when we worked together at Christikon Bible Camp in Montana. His own long and winding road to fundraising tracks through years as a rock star in pharmaceutical sales. Over breakfast last week, Mark was commenting on my post “Stop Keeping Records!” He had some great stories. I jumped at the chance to get his thoughts on here. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and experience, Mark!
Starting in grade school, I went on annual canoe trips with my dad and three other boys and their fathers from our church. Each summer we would travel north from Minneapolis to the Canadian border and enter Minnesota’s fabled Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness — a million-acre, roadless wilderness of interconnected lakes and streams where the only way forward was by canoe.
To move from lake to lake, we carried everything — canoes, packs, fishing gear, provisions — along narrow portage trails. It was (and still is) a magical, wild, beautiful place that I return to each year with close friends. Some lessons learned there have stayed with me far longer than the soreness in my shoulders from carrying a canoe.
From our dads we learned how to choose a campsite, gather only deadfall for firewood, cook over an open fire, and leave no trace. When breaking camp we made certain there was no debris, no litter — that the site looked better than when we arrived. A quiet tradition in the BWCA is to leave a neatly stacked pile of firewood beside the iron grate for the next campers.
Leave it better than you found it.
At the time, it felt like simple outdoor courtesy. Over the years, I’ve come to see it as something deeper — a philosophy about stewardship and succession.
That thought came back to me as I read Paul and Luke’s wise counsel about documenting donor relationships. Thorough contact reports, accurate records, thoughtful context — these aren’t administrative chores. They are a way of caring for relationships that will outlast us.
Before my second career in development and major gifts, I spent 32 years in the pharmaceutical industry in sales and sales management. Over that time, I inherited many territories. Sometimes the records I received were incomplete or inconsistent. Occasionally, they were exceptional — and those transitions felt markedly different. The work advanced more quickly and trust was easier to build.
Early in any new assignment I made it a priority to strengthen the CRM (customer relationship management) records. Initially I did it for practical reasons. But I came to appreciate something else: the very act of writing a thorough contact report clarified my own thinking. It preserved nuance. It deepened continuity. It made the next visit better.
When I retired from pharma sales in 2018, I didn’t know who would replace me. But I knew I wanted to leave them something useful. So I created detailed profiles for every account — notes on physicians, nurses, staff, contact information and context — organized digitally and in print. I left my phone number as well, in case the next representative ever needed perspective.
Leave it better than you found it.
Donor cultivation takes years. And eventually, every gift officer passes the baton. The relationships we build are not ours to keep; they are ours to steward for a season.
When we take the time to document our work thoughtfully and thoroughly, we are doing more than completing a task. We are honoring the donor, supporting our successor and strengthening the institution long after we have moved on.
Leave it better than you found it.
Kelly Wendell is editor of “To Be a Fundraiser.” She is Coordinator of Communication for South Dakota State University.
Love this Mark and Paul! So relatable!