“What % response rate should I expect from my mailing?”

If someone ever gives you a definitive answer to our industry’s most frequently answer, don’t do business with them. Read more »

Category: Planned Giving Marketing on April 22nd, 2008

“What’s the difference between advertising and public relations? In advertising, you tell your audience how great you are. In public relations, you get someone else tell them the same thing.”

Fundraisers, like other marketers, face skepticism and resistance nowadays when they make a direct statement about the worthiness of their organization. Prospects feel they have been fooled so many times by government, corporations and non-profits that the first response to any straight-out, first person message is distrust. Before you can get prospects to listen to your recitation of your organization’s accomplishments and needs, you have to expend a lot of persuasive energy to get past their defenses. Read more »

Category: Planned Giving Marketing on April 21st, 2008

(FREE DOWNLOADS)

Suggested payment rates for charitable gift annuities will decline effective July 1st, 2008. Many fundraisers are viewing the drop as a marketing opportunity – a chance to prod their prospects into locking in current higher rates by making a gift now. Read more »

Category: Planned Giving Marketing on April 19th, 2008

Suggested payment rates for charitable gift annuities will decline effective July 1st, 2008.

Many fundraisers are viewing the drop as a marketing opportunity – a chance to prod their prospects into locking in current higher rates by making a gift now. Read more »

Category: Planned Giving Marketing on April 18th, 2008

Whether you’re Yale, the local Diocese or the SPCA around the corner, your “talk” should be simple, direct and concise; preferably written in 10th grade English. Make that 9th grade.

“But my prospects are smarter…”

They may be, but the average attention span is not geared for reading anything that requires effort. So if you’re writing copy for your next solicitation, brochure or newsletter, here are some pointers: Read more »

Category: Planned Giving Marketing on March 1st, 2008

Market constantly and aggressively to your prospects! … It takes them a long time to make a gift commitment, so stay in their faces! … If you think planned giving is interesting, they will, too! … The Internet has revolutionized the whole process of closing planned gifts. …The Send key is the fundraiser’s greatest friend… Blah, blah, blah… Read more »

Category: Planned Giving Marketing on February 20th, 2008

With the perspective of one year, here’s the way we see it…

Most donors weren’t looking to make outright gifts from their IRAs. What they wanted to do was roll their accounts over, tax-free, into a charitable life-income plan.� They wanted to retain or increase their income, not give it away or reduce the value of their plan. Read more »

Category: Planned Giving Marketing on February 4th, 2008

Or, Planned ­Giving Placed on the Back Burner, Again.

They say that planned giving is being placed on the back-burner because of tight budgets, smaller staffs and not enough time.

Bull. There’s an underlying ­reason that none of us wants to acknowledge. Read more »

Category: Planned Giving Marketing on December 25th, 2007

Right or wrong? Good or evil? Proper or improper? Just do the right thing! Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But what happens when you run into an “ethical” quandary?

Good Ole’ Granddad

Your organization helps teenagers with substance abuse. One of your board members announces he’s received a large inheritance from his grandfather and is going to donate $50,000 in his grandfather’s name. The local paper discovers granddad made his money from the sale and distribution of alcohol. Your policies and procedures state that all alcohol-related gifts are unacceptable. Read more »

Category: Planned Giving Marketing on November 22nd, 2007

Whoa! Before you press that “send” key, stop and think. You can easily alienate your prospects here. Ready for a quick quiz? Consider the cost of non-responders. Read more »

Category: Planned Giving Marketing on October 27th, 2007