Estate gifts, also known as planned or legacy gifts, are a vital component of many nonprofits’ fundraising strategies. Soliciting bequests or estate gifts can significantly impact an organization’s financial sustainability and long-term success. However, soliciting estate gifts requires a delicate and thoughtful approach to ensure that donors feel respected, valued, and inspired. Here are some essential Dos and Don’ts to guide your nonprofit’s fundraising and planned giving efforts.
Importance of Estate Planning: Why You Need an Estate Plan
Let’s face it: Estate planning isn’t exactly a dinner table conversation starter. But trust me, it’s one of those adulting tasks that’s way more important than we often give it credit for. So, what’s all the fuss about?
Why It’s Important To Inform Nonprofits About Your Planned Gifts
It may seem silly, but it’s true — and it’s a step many donors forget. A 2019 Special Report from Giving USA found that just 4 percent of donors always report their planned gifts to organizations, and 38.7 percent sometimes inform the organizations.
King David’s Planned Gift Built The First Temple
In anticipation of this great construction project, King David accumulated immense quantities of gold, silver, bronze, precious stones and exotic woods. Then, knowing he was serving a higher power, he bequeathed those assets to his son Solomon, along with God’s instructions for the design of the temple. (Even in Biblical times, donors were particular about how their planned gifts could be used …)
Who Asks Who? Trends in Data Sourcing
From a fundraiser’s point of view, or course, a perfect world would include all prospects coming directly to the fundraiser or her organization for advice on giving. But numbers indicate fewer potential donors are seeking advice from NPOs and their personnel. They are turning instead to legal and financial professionals.
“Entry-Level Organizations”: Wave of the Past?
Recently I read online somewhere the following: [A nonprofit] is seeking a planned giving advisor. This is a junior position for a fundraiser with 3 or so years of experience who wishes to move into planned giving. Focus is on bequests, CGAs, and marketing.
Experience Proves: You Never Know
I was lying on the beach with my wife a few years back when a client buzzed through my cellphone, declaring in a sorrowful voice, “I’m going to have to apologize to all of them. In fact, I am writing the apology letter now.”
`Worse Than No Blog At All? Bad Blogs Prove “Something for Nothing” Never Happens
You’ll find it up there at the top of the list of disillusioning truths: “There ain’t no free lunch.” It’s true in fundraising, of course; but it can be obscured by the endless parade of miraculous “next big things” that tend to put our common sense out of focus. For example, the seemingly limitless marketing possibilities offered by the Internet have charmed some planned giving fundraisers into the mistaken belief that this new miracle vector will do their job for them. Make no mistake: With planned giving on the Internet as with anything else, lack of effort and commitment translate directly into lack of results,
Planned Giving: Simple Stuff or Just for Harvard Lawyers?
How do you view planned giving? Is it simple, or complicated? One of the biggest misunderstandings I see in the non-profit world is the mistaken belief that planned giving is complex and mysterious.
