Preemptive Love is “a coalition stretching across Iraq, Syria, the United States, and beyond, working together to unmake violence and create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.” As both a fundraiser and a donor, I’ve been impressed with their ability to make every donor feel valued and appreciated. Recently Preemptive Love’s Donor Care Coordinator, Lana Zring, generously agreed to an interview.
1.) Tell me about the mission of Preemptive Love.
Preemptive Love’s mission is to end war. We do this by helping fast, showing up on the frontlines to provide relief and aid; give help that lasts, creating jobs that provide income and reduce the chance of recruitment into violence; and help heal the past, creating meaningful relationships that break down barriers to allow us to learn from one another and prevent the next war from even beginning.
2.) How long have you been with the organization and what does a “Donor Care Coordinator” do?
I’ve been working at Preemptive Love for a year now, but honestly, my heart feels like it’s been here longer. As a Donor Care Coordinator, I work on making sure our donors feel connected with our work and valued. For us, it’s important that donors know how much we value them because it’s honestly thanks to them that our work is possible. They allow us to immediately show up on the frontlines. Each donor also has a meaningful story as a peacemaker, and having the opportunity to listen to them helps me and my team members grow and learn about different ways of peacemaking. We all have so much to learn from one another in our diverse community!
3.) In your mission statement, PL notes that “Every meal, every liter of water, every new job is a chance to demonstrate a different kind of love. A love big enough to unmake violence.” That love seems to extend to your supporters as well. Even as a small donor I feel cherished by Preemptive Love – like my gift really DOES make a difference. With such a large and virtual staff, what kind of processes do you have in place to see that every donor is cared for and honored — and every employee is on the same page?
In our development team, our whole goal is to make sure we build genuine, meaningful relationships. We have different team members that coordinate with one another to plan out who we each engage with. That gives us the opportunity to meaningfully connect with each single donor, listen to them, and see what we can do to serve them better. We have meetings frequently to share stories we’ve heard from donors, feedback on what we need to improve on, and also brainstorm on innovative ways we can engage with our donor community.
All other teams on our staff contribute to making sure our donors feel valued as well – whether it comes to impact stories we share, language we use, or even how we make sure our website is user friendly! We have staff-wide meetings each week, and it’s honestly thanks to leadership and effort from each single staff member that we’re able to continue finding ways to engage so meaningfully with our donors.
4.) Tell me about your CRM. What kind of donor management system do you use and how did you select it?
We use Salesforce because it’s most used amongst businesses. It’s honestly really helpful and efficient in terms of having all the important data we need recorded, even allowing us to save notes about important details from each donor’s story.
About Lana
Lana Zring saw Preemptive Love’s work first-hand when she, along with her family members, volunteered to bring food to children that Preemptive Love was providing heart surgeries for in 
Iraqi Kurdistan. She has volunteered with various NGOs since middle school, developing a passion to serve others in need of help no matter where they are. Right after graduating from Lipscomb University in Nashville, she immediately began working alongside Preemptive Love to connect with the organization’s kind-hearted and inspirational donors. Lana loves to utilize her international business skills to also help volunteers get creative with their fundraisers and become leaders in their community. Because of her love for people and culture, Lana’s always trying to learn a new language that will help her connect with people from across the globe, and she absolutely loves to listen to music in different languages (especially Korean-pop).
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I can’t wait to meet with you personally.
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