Must-Read White Papers

Jessica

By Jack Miller, CFRE

Author Jack Miller shares a true story of an event that changed his life. It begins with the shy little girl Jessica who won't make friends with him, and culminates in a lesson on how suffering can help people put aside their fears to serve one another — on the real meaning of giving.

• Jessica is diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a form a childhood cancer that commonly affects kids under 5 years old.
• The whole community comes together to help Jessica and her family in every way they can.
• In the end, Jessica's gift to Jack, and to everyone in her own community and beyond, is infinitely greater.

Planned Giving Newsletters that Work*
*Blah is not an option

By Viken Mikaelian with Jim Pierson

Old-fashioned planned giving newsletters are easy to produce, but these days easy is not good enough. Your grandfather’s newsletter is not getting read. It’s time for a new approach.

• Fundraisers have to work smarter with robust, insightful newsletters that engage and persuade the reader.
• Massage your mailing lists to focus on donor loyalty.
• Grows readership with messaging that focuses on the benefits of planned giving. Stop promoting death!.
• You need a design award like a fish needs a bicycle.

Can You Find Out Who is Visiting Your Planned Giving Website? The Answer is No. And You Shouldn't Try.

There have been a few recent claims from planned giving vendors that they can identify the visitors to your planned giving website. Sounds too good to be true – and it is. In this paper, VirtualGiving.Com Director of IT Operations Jason Stauffer provides a tech-savvy yet layman-friendly explanation of just why such claims are false and misleading, and why no nonprofit should touch such a capability even if it existed.

• "Tracking" visitors is one thing, "identifying" them is another.
• There is a fundamental disconnect between an IP address (your PC's label) and the actual computer user.
• You need a court order even to ask internet service providers to reveal subscriber data based on IP addresses. Do you want to go there?
• Trying to get this information is a violation of your prospects' privacy and a disastrous customer-relations no-no.
• Even if you were able to procure such information, it is highly inaccurate.
• Think about it logically: if websites could identify visitors, we'd be deluged every day with media scandals about this or that celebrity, politician, or corporate bigwig visiting pornographic or otherwise controversial sites.

Wake Up and Smell The New Paradigm
Bold Fundraising versus Diminishing Returns

By John Foster

Not so long ago, the outlook for fundraising reflected the sunny optimism of the overall economy. What a difference a few years and some economic "uncertainty" make! Charitable gifts are made from ever-more scarce discretionary dollars. Yet we still ask the same prospects more often for more support — a great recipe for diminishing returns.

• Hit the ground running — you're late for the new paradigm.
• Trash your preconceptions — they only get in your way.
• Market boldly — planned giving still offers attractive advantages.
• Leverage the nontraditional — like gifts of non-appreciated assets!

The "Planned Giving" Newsletter
Does Anyone Really Need These Things?

By Tom Ahern

It's easy, but is it wise? You pay a vendor good money to produce a planned giving newsletter for your organization, and what you get is the same thing all that vendor's other clients get. As communications, they're a trainwreck, with writing that would put an accountant to sleep, inept headlines, and they're glaringly over-designed (a common feature of publications with nothing to say). No wonder prospects are calling them "death brochures."

• To recipients, these aren't really newsletters at all, but that dreaded and despised item, the naked attempt to sell.
• Basically sales brochures under another name, these "newsletters" are automatically unwelcome.
• Research proves your prospects consider that newsletter you're paying for to be a "death brochure."
• You can salvage the situation by getting back to a donor-centric approach to marketing communications.

"Planned Giving" vs "Gift Planning"
The Argument Is Over

By Viken Mikaelian

Our clients, friends and prospects often ask which term is better to use for their marketing efforts, "Planned Giving" or "Gift Planning." Answering their question has required a fair amount of explanation on our part, because this argument has been going on for more than 30 years. But now, the facts are in. The debate is over -- and guess who wins.

• Quick: Do you close a "planned gift" or a "gift plan"?
• Gift Planning? That's something retailers offer during the holidays, right?
• Which term is Googled 100 times more often than the other?
• Which term is vastly more popular in actual usage in print?

Top Ten Reasons to Pursue Planned Gifts
"But we need the cash now!"

By Viken Mikaelian

Times have changed a lot in ten years — but the excuses for not pursuing planned gifts haven't. The excuses weren't valid a decade ago, and they sure as hell aren't true now. But you still hear fundraisers saying the same darn things – and falling further behind in the struggle for endowment. Reality check!

• Not going after planned gifts? Other nonprofits are — and they're getting the dollars you should be getting.
• Planned giving does not lessen annual giving — in fact, it increases it.
• Planned gifts are easy to give and easy to receive — they're gifts anyone can make.
• If you're resisting planned giving, you're arguing with a steamroller — and begging for extinction.

Gifts of Life Insurance from Younger Donors?
Brian Sagrestano Explains the Pluses and Minuses

By Brian M. Sagrestano, JD, CFRE

Should you promote gifts of life insurance from donors ages 30-45? Brian says he is asked this question a lot, and that's no surprise, given that no nonprofits can afford not to look into every revenue source in a challenging economy. Based on practical and economic considerations, however, he recommends against seeking such gifts.

• Consider the effort involved in tracking donors and collecting premiums. You thought asking for gifts was hard?
• As a general rule, life insurance is not a great investment. Life insurance was not designed for charitable giving.
• Examples provide compelling arguments against gifts of life insurance.
• Even low-return endowment giving can easily outperform life insurance.

Are You Getting Those Donor Stories?

By Viken Mikaelian

Have you been putting them off? Bad idea. Find out why they can represent your most powerful marketing tool, and how the very process of eliciting donor stories cultivates your supporters and invites future giving.

• People like to talk about themselves and their generosity.
• Donor stories invite prospect identification by foregrounding positive giving outcomes.
• The getting and publishing of donor stories represents possibly the highest form of stewardship.
• Not a born interviewer? Effective aids are available to help you up the learning curve fast.

Seven Proven Steps to Drive Traffic to Your Planned Giving Website

By Viken Mikaelian

Do you have a lazy website? Not anymore. Here are the critical steps you can take starting now to drive more prospects to visit, and energize your online marketing – even if your site is already rocking and rolling!

• Getting the most out of resources you already have available, such as organizational publications.
• Deploying effective marketing content including white papers, display ads and postcards.
• Discovering the power of a compelling, clickable e-mail signature line.
• Expanding your site's appeal by promoting it as a donor-centric, online information center.

It's All About Endowment (But Most Nonprofits Still Don't Get It)

By Debra Ashton

Are you running flat out developing the annual gifts you need just to cover your expenses? Endowment giving enables you to strengthen your organization's position permanently.

• Endowment giving works very effectively to offset operating expenses.
• Endowment giving results in larger, more transformational gifts.
• Endowment giving enables a quantum leap in donor engagement
• Endowment giving requires no special skills to solicit or accept.

Why You Should Promote Bequests

By Brian Sagrestano, JD, CFRE

Tough times don't mean you have to miss out on that $41 trillion wealth transfer. Charitable bequest offers the greatest long-term sustainability for your program and its mission.

• Charitable bequests are the largest gifts that prospects can make.
• When other forms of revenue are declining, charitable bequest gifts represent a "lifeboat" for your program.
• The number of charitable bequests actually grew by 5 percent during recession years.
• Donors who commit to a charitable bequest make annual gifts twice as large as those with no charitable estate plans.

There’s No Secret: It’s Common Sense Planned Giving

By Viken Mikaelian

What does the new research say? Who cares? Dithering never closed a gift. Navel-gazing is a waste of time when action pays dividends. It’s common sense.

• Are you wasting valuable time preparing to prepare?
• Sure, we can always do research — but what’s the question?
• Why do we require more academic study, metrics, and micro-dissection of what we already know?
• Focus on simple gifts that anyone can afford. They represent more than 80% of all gifts and they’re easy to market.

King David Made the First Planned Gift

By Jerry Rohrbach

Talk about a successful Building Fund! The result was the Temple of King David. But that’s not the only Biblical story with philanthropic relevance.

• David’s prayer: “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this?”
• The Bible has a lot to say about accumulating wealth, caring for the poor and needy, and giving to God’s service for both secular and spiritual purposes.
• Jesus said, “You can’t take it with you.” Imagine the good that can be done by heeding this principle.
• Scientific studies support that it is better to give than to receive: Giving is good for you!

All Annuitants Are Women and They Lie About Their Age

By Dr. Scott R. Janney, CFRE, RFC

Women may or may not lie about their age, but ACGA rate calculations assume that all annuitants claim to be two years younger than they really are!

• Does the recent plunge in investment portfolio value mean your program should stop offering gift annuities to donors?
• The American Council on Gift Annuities helps protect charities based on five assumptions.
• Changing tactics during stressful times causes your nonprofit to deviate from established norms and thus lose these protections.
• “A bird in the hand is better than one in the bush, even if you have to pay 9.5% for an estimated 2.6 years to hold to hold that bird in your hand.”

Planned Giving E-mail Blasts: The E-marketing Tool That Bites You Back

By Viken Mikaelian

So you just got a $60,000 bequest out of a 10,000-prospect e-blast campaign that cost you $2,000. Not bad, right? Wrong — that kind of thinking leads to failure.

• Regardless of what some vendors say, the open rate of canned, auto-generated planned giving e-mail blasts can be as low as 0.02%?
• The e-blast philosophy misses a critical point: non-response is not free.
• The loss of prospect value and future revenue that results from annoying your prospect base far outweighs any short-term gain.
• Return on Prospect is a people-based metric that reinforces future success.

A Small Nonprofit’s Best Friend

By Valerie Ingram

Some fundraisers’ plates are so full that they never get around to implementing a planned giving program. Community foundations are the reason that doesn’t have to be true.

• Being super busy could be an excuse for not building a planned giving program — but not when you can call on your community foundation for help.
• Community foundations are public charities that share the goal of improving quality of life in their local geographic area.
• You don’t need to become an expert in planned giving, because that’s what a community foundation already does.
• Community foundations have staff with planned giving expertise and legal committees to advise them, and provide low-cost training for nonprofit staff and board members.

Overkill Marketing

by Vince Fraumeni and James Pierson

• How to make your prospects tune out without really trying.
• Dressing pseudo-spam in a suit and tie and calling it a newsletter doesn’t fool anyone.
• Mission-driven vs. profit-driven marketing.
• How to use your unique advantage over financial investment giants.

Seniors on the Internet

by Derek Davis

• 65% of the Americans age 55+ who are online use the Internet for investing.
• Seniors who own computers spend more time on to the Internet than any other segment of American society.
• Seniors are 27% more inclined to invest online than their younger counterparts.
• These seniors are wealthier, more financially savvy, and more motivated.

Dinosaur Development

by Adam Corson-Finnerty, Development Director for the University of Pennsylvania Library System

• How to get rid of Internet myopia: “The Internet is where the money is.”
• “You are losing money. You are losing constituents. You are losing ‘mindshare.’”
• Don’t let six-figure donations walk out the door.
• “One of the biggest mistakes that fundraisers make is to spend too much time on small gifts. The same thing is happening on the Internet.”
• Donor recognition can lead to second-time gifts and inspire new first-time gifts.

Why a Planned Giving Program?

by Jerry Rohrbach CFRE, ChFC, Director of Planned Giving. Salvation Army, Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware Division

• Planned giving is the fastest growing segment of philanthropy in America today.
• How planned giving helps donors maximize gifts.
• Americans over 65 now represent 12% of population — and they are giving.
• $40 Trillion in wealth will be transferred over the next 40 years.

Top Ten Planned Giving Myths

by Richard D. Barrett and Reine Shiffman

• Planned giving is not appropriate for a new organization.
• Planned giving applies only to older people.
• We need money now; so we can’t possibly think about planned giving!
• Planned giving hurts annual giving.

Understanding Your Web Statistics

by Viken Mikaelian

• How will we know how many visits our site gets?
• What to expect from your web statistics.
• Getting visitors to your website.
• Promote your website personally.

Planned Giving and the Church: The Last Frontier?

By John Foster and Kyle Anasiewicz, with Dan Rice

• Planned giving: A missed opportunity for churches?
• The right tools can change perceptions, selling your mission and building endowment.
• The gifts are waiting in the pews.

Planned Giving for Jewish Organizations

by Reine Shiffman

• The new millennium brings with it new attitudes about Jewish philanthropy.
• Jewish giving today is based more on value rather than intimidation or fear.
• More and more Jews are giving beyond the Jewish community.
• Planned giving provides an array of options and gives donors more control.