PlannedGiving.com - Planned Giving

There is one marketing truth you must understand: people give when they are ready to give, not when you are ready to sell (i.e., “ask”). So, just because your lead is not ready to buy (donate) today, doesn’t mean they aren’t important. After all, today’s leads are tomorrow’s donors, or next month’s or next year’s.

That is why it is important to remember to treat your prospects like donors, and your donors like friends. Treating your leads like donors ensures they will come directly to you once they are ready to “buy.”

Similarly, treating your donors like friends is going to dramatically increase their loyalty. And planned giving is all about loyalty. We all want to feel like one big family and not just out there someone trying to sell us and that’s it.

Since less than 5% of this nation’s wealth is in cash and 95% is in assets, it’s time to focus on planned gifts!

And what specific gift plans should you focus on?  We call them the “painless gifts from the poor” or the “no hassle” gifts because they are gifts that do not affect one’s cash flow during lifetime. And what’s best is that these make up over 80% of all planned gifts, are easy to give and to receive, and usually do not require the assistance of a professional advisor or a lawyer.

They are easy and inexpensive to market, too!  Here is copy you can get:

• Bequests
• Appreciated Securities
• IRAs
• Bequests

After a long and fruitful life, Age-Based Marketing is dead. Cause of death? The New Economy, youthful Baby Boomers and just plain old age.

Once upon a time, Americans marched a predictable path: high school to college to career to marriage to family to retirement and the golf course in Florida.

That’s all changed. Read more »

You get in the elevator to head up to the 12th floor. A prospect you’ve always wanted to talk to enters at 3. He recognizes you and says, “I’ve seen you before.What do you do for the institution?” Read more »

Small cash gifts help you paint the walls… but they won’t strengthen your foundation.

Sometimes, our current economic situation feels like a meltdown, but it’s really just a warning:

Are you prepared? Read more »

With the recent plunge in the value of investment portfolios, some chief financial officers and development professionals are wondering whether they should remain “in the business” of offering gift annuities to their donors.

Gift annuities are, after all, contracts that obligate the charity to make fixed payments based on a formula that assumes both specific investment returns and mortality rates.  But people are living longer and investments have recently under-performed expectations.

Read more »

Many development officers are wondering where to focus their efforts during this down economy. The answer may surprise you.

It’s planned giving.

Why? Because many of the things that were keeping you from focusing on planned giving before—special projects, a capital campaign, major gift solicitations—are on hold. Read more »

I was challenged by a colleague recently to write something using the concept that “nobody ever washes a rental car.” Read more »

What’s scarier than your 401k statement? Writing a year-end appeal to your donors and supporters in this economic climate, that’s what.

Some of my favorite nonprofit friends are telling me they’re not going to do a year–end letter this year.  They know donors are facing the biggest cash crunch of their lives, and they don’t want to make them feel even more jittery.

Read more »

There is one marketing truth you must understand: People give when they are ready to give, not when you are ready to sell (i.e., “ask”). So, just because your lead is not ready to buy (donate) today, doesn’t mean they aren’t important. After all, today’s leads are tomorrow’s donors, or next month’s or next year’s. Read more »