# Celebrating the first #DonorLove day

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2014/02/12/celebrating-first-donorlove-day/
- Published: 2014-02-12T13:14:05+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**It’s not quite Valentine’s Day but it’s never too early to celebrate the gratitude
and respect that donors deserve. So today is the very first international DonorLove
day, which comes with its hashtag of #DonorLove.**

The celebration is the idea of the inscrutable (I _really_ don’t know who is behind
the account) [@FundraisingYoda](http://twitter.com/fundraisingYoda), who dispenses
fundraising wisdom on Twitter.

The diminutive green one shared the idea earlier this month, and is encouraging 
charities, donors, fundraisers and ‘sector friends’ around the world to “share unique
and creative ideas and stories of showing #donorlove”.

## Advertisement

![Join DonorLove Day 2024 on 12 February. Celebrate the power of donors to save 
the galaxy. Photo of a small knitted Yoda in the top left.](https://wfay6x.infiniteuploads.
cloud/2014/02/join-donorlove-day-2014.jpg)

Join DonorLove day 2014 on 12 February (not the 14th!).

 

## Why 12 February?

Given he has a brain the size of a planet (yes, that’s a different sci-fi allusion),@
FundraisingYoda chose this date, 2/12 (or 12/2 for a reason.

**2nd month** = two, the donor and the cause

**12** = 12 months, a commitment to show appreciation for regular gifts

## Join in

Stories are being shared via Twitter with the #donorlove hashtag, but also elsewhere.

@FundraisingYoda is also keen for donors to share their own experiences of how they
felt connected and appreciated by charities and causes that they supported.

To help get the message out, here are a few graphical tools that we’ve contributed
to the event. Feel free to share them and promote DonorLove.

![Heart shaped Wordle feature giving, donor and fundraising-related words in various
sizes.](https://wfay6x.infiniteuploads.cloud/2014/02/donorlove-heart.jpg)

_A donorlove heart using Wordle.net for DonorLove day 2014._

![Purple outline in a heart shape, and text in the middle: #donorlove, 12 February
2014, 2+ donor + you
12 * 12 months of the year appreciation](https://wfay6x.infiniteuploads.
cloud/2014/02/donorlove.png)

A #donorlove heart

And here is our favourite, in homage to the source of the idea. Turn the volume 
down now!

_[A ‘Star Wars crawl telling the story of donorlove. Yellow text slowly recedes,
against a black star-flecked space background, in an animation made available at
the time from starwars.com, to the Star Wars theme tune. Made with the now deprecated
Flash, it is no longer available]._

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 * **[A short, succinct guide to the Commission the Donor Experience and its output](https://fundraising.co.uk/2018/06/07/short-succinct-guide-cde-output/)**(
   7 June 2018)
 * **[Trust is two-way](https://fundraising.co.uk/2018/07/19/trust-is-two-way/)**(
   19 July 2018)