Planned Giving Marketing

What’s the most popular food served at conferences? You guessed it. Chicken. What’s the most popular flavor of ice cream? If you said “vanilla,” kudos again. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with chicken or vanilla. Although I do like both, I’m more of a seafood and habanero lover (yes, there’s even a habanero ice cream — it’s pretty good actually). But here’s the thing: Both of those options sum up what’s wrong with the nonprofit world. We’re plain.

Random acts of kindness? Pfui. How about consistent acts of kindness. Same goes for marketing… and that’s why many nonprofits fail because a little bit of this and a little bit of that …

You do not need a Ph.D. All you need is Street Smarts. Look at what John Ready did at Valley Gives Back.

You have a planned giving program — that’s great! And you get those occasional gifts, and that’s great too. But you’re wondering if your donors know that you exist.

I just love Tom Ahern’s sarcastic line: “Oh, goody! Look what’s come in the mail, honey. It’s the latest issue of our death brochure. Round up the kids!”

You can’t believe how hard it is for people to be simple, how much they fear being simple. They worry that if they’re simple, people will think they’re simpleminded. In reality, of course, it’s just the reverse. (~ Jack Welch, CEO General Electric.)

Nonprofit board members who serve on their investment advisory committees have a dual fiduciary role to perform: 1) They must protect the intent of the donor and the long-term viability of their organization; and 2) They have to manage endowment assets to provide a reasonable amount of income to support the causes that the funds are earmarked for.  

The classic cry of the binge fundraiser is “Oops… gifts are slow to come in. I guess I’d better send out a mailing.” If you find yourself in the middle of a quiet spell, thinking that a few actions, a couple of phone calls and a mailing here and there will get things moving again, you need to rethink your strategy.