PlannedGiving.com - Planned Giving

Bloomberg News is reporting that while the number of households making charitable donations last year remained essentially unchanged over 2007 numbers, the average donations declined 35%. Read more »

By Kyle Anasiewicz

Donors don’t leave legacies to grey flannel suits. Read more »

By Matthew Wilson

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. Read more »

By Anne Melvin

Why is it that we so often look at a gift negotiation as a cat-and mouse game — as a struggle between what “we” want and what “they” want?

Perhaps we forget the simple fact that fundamentally, we both want the same thing: Prosperity and growth for the charity. Read more »

By Chase Magnuson

Many charities shut themselves off from this significant source of revenue because they’re leery of getting involved in what they see as a complex area.

The attitude is, “We’re risk-averse. We don’t have procedures in place to deal with gifts of real estate. Plus, we’ve either had bad experiences, or heard of other charities that had bad experiences with real estate. So we steer clear.”

Read more »

Most of us in planned giving started out doing something else. We were volunteers, annual giving officers, ministers, financial planners, insurance brokers, teachers. Read more »

What fundraiser has not faced a boss who:

1. doesn’t understand how planned gifts work,
2. doesn’t want to learn, and
3. thinks that planned gifts are an “easy out” for donors who should have made an outright gift?

Sorry, but that boss is not going to smack his forehead one afternoon and exclaim spontaneously, “Where have unitrusts been all my life?” Read more »