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We define it as any major gift, made in lifetime or at death as part of a donor's overall financial and/or estate planning. By contrast, gifts to the annual fund or for membership dues are made from a donor's discretionary income, and while they may be budgeted for, they are not planned.
(Our handy Planned Giving Pocket Guide describes all planned gifts.)
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What is the number one reason people donate to charity? Because they are asked to give. The other four reasons: - Compassion for those in need
- They personally believe in the cause
- They are affected by the cause
- To give back to their community.
And here's a powerful fact: Most donors would give more if they were simply asked.
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If you're a non-profit, you already are in the planned giving "business." The question is whether you are actively prospecting for gifts, or just passively counting the occasional, unexpected bequest that comes your way. Saying "we're not ready for planned giving" often covers up the reactive mode of a non-profit satisfied with raising cash gifts for immediate needs, rather than taking a proactive stance -- and raising more and larger funds for future endowment.
We hear, "I'll get around to it next spring." Next spring comes and goes... Potential donors die, move away, or make commitments to other non-profits. Opportunities for planned gifts critical to building the organization's future strength are lost.
Unfortunately, many fundraisers don't realize that the average time from inception to maturity for a planned gift is just 7-10 years - only a few years longer than most campaign pledge periods.
Don't know where to begin? Download our 12-Month Marketing Plan.
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Research data shows that 43% of charitable bequests and 35% of charitable remainder trusts are created by individuals age 55 or younger. Don't let the average age of your prospects be a principal determinant in whether or not you will market planned gifts.
Too young for planned giving? How about: old enough to plan for the future.
(Here is a slide show of interesting planned giving myths that we uncover.)
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Donors at all financial levels take advantage of planned gifts. Wealth screening and demographic criteria alone are poor predictors of propensity to make a planned gift. The highest predictor is institutional loyalty. Remember: Most planned gift donors give small annual gifts year after year rather than larger donations: 69% of planned giving donors give less than $500 per year and are unrated prospects!
(Here is a slide show of interesting planned giving myths that we uncover.)
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The average time from inception to maturity for a planned gift is 7-10 years - only a few years longer than most campaign pledge periods. And remember, the typical planned giving target is 200 times a donor's largest annual fund gift.
Do the math yourself:
The typical capital gift target is 20 times a donor's largest annual fund gift. The typical completed planned gift is 200 times a donor's largest annual fund gift. Your planned giving pool may be as much as 5 times larger than your capital pool.
(Here is a slide show of interesting planned giving myths that we uncover.)
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Those who are your loyal givers. Some non-profits target seniors... some target the wealthy... and some target high-income earners. Well, 35% of CRTs are created by donors 55 years old or younger; 15% of all planned gifts are made by donors 45 and younger; and a typical planned giving prospect is one who has earned between $50,000 and $150,000 per year his or her entire life (adjusted for inflation). The fact is, when data-mining for your best prospects, focus on institutional loyalty, demonstrated by consistent annual giving. It is not as easy as it may seem, but for some help, go to PG Finder. (This is different from all the other analytics or wealth-mining services on the market.) If you insist on doing it yourself, here is a FREE tip: Go to your annual giving database and carefully select donors who have given consecutively for 10 years or more. Since there are many other permutations to consider, you won't get our results of 91% accuracy, but you will at least get a list to start working from.
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Focus on features, and you're selling how planned gifts work. It's like detailing how many cylinders a car has instead of how much the client would enjoy driving it (benefits). We believe in focusing the prospect's attention on benefits - in selling the sizzle (benefits), not the steak. And one of our colleagues contends that if you're selling the features of planned gifts, you're promoting death! (The primary feature of a planned gift in the prospect's mind? "As soon as I die, they get my money!")
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Prompts from an organization's overall website should be one of the best sources of visitors to the planned giving pages, but it's the weakest link (excuse the pun) at many non-profits. Prospects already thinking about the organization have a hard time finding out how they can support it. The solution? - 1 Develop a custom, human-friendly URL and promote it yourself.
- 2 Work closely with your colleagues in IT to create logical links from the main site to planned giving.
Regarding #1 above, most people will not click on, for example: "give > advancement > planned giving" (in fact, most people do not even know what "advancement" stands for - it's like saying "foundation" - we're all using words that only we understand!). You have an easily remembered URL, and you're promoting it? Good. Now, ask for/insist on/bribe your webmaster for a link on the your organization's home page, plus any pages that tell visitors about the good work that your organization is doing, that says something like "Creative Ways to Support Us" and leads to your gift pages. Throughout your institution's website, find interesting stories about new projects or memorable events. Work on embedding a line or two within those stories that hyperlink to planned giving. For example, "You can help support this new research endowment with a gift that costs nothing during your lifetime." (links to giving through a will). If you need some planned giving "one-liners" you can get them here for free.
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To whom? According to marketing guru Dan Kennedy, "A funny thing usually happens in the advertising business ¾ a client will cancel or change an ad campaign that's working perfectly well just because they got bored with it and assumed everybody else was, too. That's a bad assumption. There are ad campaigns that sustain success for five, even ten years. These campaigns are old hat to their owners but are new to new customers who are paying attention to them for the first time. If it's unknown to someone, it's a secret — regardless of how routine it may be to you." This especially applies to planned giving, since your prospects will visit your website over a period of a few days before contacting you and not month after month. Remember, the site will always look fresh because it is a one-time visit.
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Yes, and it's essential in making them comfortable enough to spend time exploring your website. Tell them that they are not being monitored, and mean it. (Take a look at VirtualGiving's websites that back you up by posting a friendly but explicit privacy notice for you.)
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Correct and that is our point.
You should never focus on the details or features of planned gifts in any marketing medium! Sell the sizzle (a gift's benefits), not the steak.
The vendor's reasoning goes back to the 60's — the Old Days of planned giving.
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Donor stories motivate others to give, and generate second-time gifts. Imagine the impact of a simple, sincere story about a donor who was able to make the gift she had always wanted because the payments from her gift annuity more than replaced the dividends from the stock she donated! A real-life story demonstrates the effectiveness of planned giving in ways that technical gift detail never can.
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Our advice? Do not include any numeric scenario. A $10K gift example will implant (even subconsciously) in your prospects' minds that that's the amount they should donate. Describe your mission and vision, show how a gift annuity can help a donor support that vision, and then follow up with a personalized gift example for each respondent.
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People skills are by far the most valuable to your success. You can always hire a professional to assist you with the technical details. If you are gifted with both skills (which is rare), may the force be with you. Most companies base 80% of their hiring decision on technical skills, yet 85% of turnover is due to behavioral incompatibility. We're so hung up on fulfilling the technical requirements that we frequently forget we're dealing with people, and fail to identify or analyze the necessary people skills required. Always remember: People give to people, not to institutions. So instead of taking the next course on gift annuities, pick up a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
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They're a must. There's no way we can over-emphasize this. We always tell our clients the most important thing is visits. Everything we do is designed to get you in front of more prospects. We can come up with the coolest marketing stuff but if our clients aren't visiting their prospects, the cool ideas are meaningless. Some planned giving officers make few visits because their institutions are successfully raising a lot of money. We call them DNPs - Do Nothing People. Yes, their institutions are raising planned gifts, but only due to the size of their constituency and the momentum of the institution. Unfortunately, with DNP fundraisers, they are also leaving a lot of gifts on the table.
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Fewer than if you were making annual fund calls. Remember that typically you will be visiting older people, and either soliciting them or thanking them for a major gift. This is a big deal to them - a gift made from capital, not an annual fund contribution made from discretionary income. They expect you to take your time with them. In addition, many of the people you visit will be retired, often to a location far away from their old home and family. They may be bored and lonely - and they will want to talk. A typical planned gift visit will last one hour, perhaps longer if it is a repeat visit and the prospect has become friendly with you. Physical impairments -- hearing loss, limited mobility - will increase this time. Figure two to two-and-a-half hours if you also take the prospect out for a meal. A good average to plan on is three visits per day, or four if you schedule a dinner call. Any tighter schedule will be frustrating for both you and the prospects.
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At the end of your email is your signature line. Develop a set of 5 signature lines and use the appropriate one depending whom you are writing to. For example, if you know that your prospect owns appreciated securities, below your signature you may add, "Did you know giving stock could be more beneficial than giving cash?"* Better yet, have this hyperlink to your website's page on Appreciate Securities.
Avoid vague blurbs like "Our Foundation's Goal is to Support Our Institution." First, most people don't even know what a foundation is (a lady we know thought is was part of the building's basement); second, it's too generic to get a point across. Even stay away from words like "bequest" - most do not know what it is.
Here are some promotional one-liners you can use.
[* See our Stock Calculator]
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This may sound silly ... but we have clients who do it: Tell callers about your website as part of your voicemail recording: "Hi! This is Richard. To skip this recording and leave a message now press #. "While I am unable to take your call, please take a look at our website that features creative ways to give to (organization name); It's fun and informative. You may even recognize some of your peers who are profiled online! The web address is ..."
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First, good luck. All the convincing in the world isn't going to make your boss smack his forehead early one morning and cry, "I get it! I get it! Let me google unitrusts and discover the wonderful world of planned giving!"
Joking aside, here's a great link. At the end, you can request a Power Point version. (91% of those who've heard the presentation have given it this presentation a 5-rating; some professional advisors use it in their seminars.)
For a professional (to convince your board) presentation titled Get Your Board on Board, click here.
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