A donor invited me to visit with him to discuss his estate, so we set up a time to meet at his farm.

I drove up to the nice two-story home and knocked on the door. A lady answered, and when I asked for the donor, she said he lived next door – in a trailer.

A dilapidated trailer house, to be more specific. The screen in the door was torn out so his dogs could run in and out. “Simple” hardly describes the interior.

In the course of my visit, the donor told me the two-story farmhouse was occupied by his hired man and his family.

Why does the donor live in the trailer?

He explained, “This is all I need.”

A man of considerable wealth, living simply so he can give.

Quite a lesson.

With the November announcement that the American Council on Gift Annuities recommended gift annuity rates would be reduced effective January 1, there was a healthy debate in the charitable community about whether to advertise this change to prospects. With the change behind us, it is a good time to reaffirm that our planned gift marketing should be focused on:

• supporting the good that we do (our mission),
• while helping the prospect meet a personal planning objective (like increasing retirement income).

This donor-centric approach ensures that our appeals will produce qualified leads, regardless of gift annuity rates.

I don’t think any of us would be in this business if we didn’t believe that philanthropy, giving, the act of charity – no matter how humble – ennobles everything it touches.

But I don’t know whether to laugh or cry just now, because I learned recently that a man in Florida willed his house to the U.S. government so the sales proceeds could be applied to defray the National Debt.

Details: The donor’s name is James H. Davidson, Jr. NBCMiami reports that he passed to his reward in December 2011 at age 87. His Coral Gables house went on the block last Saturday, and the auctioneer gaveled an end to the bidding at $1.175 million. Mr. Davidson also left another $1 million to the government, so his total gift was $2.175 million.

Of course, donors make the gifts they want to make, and I would never argue with that. But I’m pained that Mr. Davidson’s gift is most assuredly NOT one that will keep on giving.

If I were better with numbers I could supply piquant examples of just how small $2.175 million looks next to a national debt in the trillions. Suffice it to say that Mr. Davidson’s contribution has sunk without trace in our ocean of sovereign debt. (Actually, his money’s probably in China now, which is basically the same thing.)

That fact may or may not be irrelevant to the donor’s intention. But when two million bucks begin to look like one drop in the bucket, maybe it’s time for those of us who cultivate and advise givers like Mr. Davidson to suggest there may be better ways to more effectively address a very real problem like the National Debt with their personal fortunes.

Examples:

• The James H. Davidson, Jr. Scholarship for Responsible Stewardship
• The James H. Davidson, Jr. Faculty Chair in Applied Macroeconomics
• The James H. Davidson, Jr. Lecture Series in 21^st Century Federalism

Education has a multiplier effect over time. Any of the above could easily be endowed by a planned gift so that Mr. Davidson’s seed money would continue to strike at the roots of the National Debt problem in perpetuity, rather than just an anecdotal snipping away of a leaf or two.

No doubt Mr. Davidson’s heart was in the right place when he made his gift. But where was his trusted advisor fundraiser when that gift was being contemplated?

By Jack Miller, CFRE

Before she became ill, I used to see Jessica every Sunday night when her parents came to play in the little mixed-couples pickup basketball league at the parish gym. At that time — and this was twenty years ago — Jessica was about one year old. Cute kid. An only child who was barely talking yet.

During the games when I was on the sidelines, I’d try to say hello to her and make friends. Usually, a child will come over and get acquainted with me sooner or later, but not Jessica. No matter what I tried, she wasn’t having any part of it. She kept her distance.  For some reason, I frightened her.

Later that year, Jessica became ill. The doctors said she had neuroblastoma, a form of cancer that most commonly affects children under the age of five, usually detected only after it has started to spread. So even before she was age two, Jessica knew what it was to lose her hair to chemotherapy.

The illness brought our whole parish together to find ways to help Jessica and her family.  It was no surprise that one major area where help was needed was money. Jessica’s parents were not well-to-do people — just good people.

Many Voices

So with the parents’ permission I began organizing fundraising events.  One was a multi-choir concert featuring singers from four multi-denominational local churches. It seemed a life-affirming way for the community to contribute. Ticket proceeds would help to pay the $5,000 deductible on the little girl’s health insurance.

One day I met Jessica and her parents at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh — where the little girl was receiving an emergency transfusion — to finalize some important concert details. Jessica’s dad invited me to stick around until his wife and Jessica returned.  Knowing the effect I had on the child, I was hesitant to stay, but ultimately I did.

Soon, Jessica’s mom turned the corner pulling one of those portable IV drip trolleys.  Jessica was in her arms connected to an IV tube.  When Jessica saw me she immediately hid her face against her mom.  We all chuckled, and I thought, “Some things never change.  What is it about me that frightens her?”

Jessica’s Gift

But the next thing I knew, Jessica turned back, stared at me for what seemed like minutes, then reached out her little arms like she wanted to give me a hug!  After I cautiously approached, she put her arms around my neck and just squeezed. One-and-a-half-year-old Jessica was giving me the biggest hug she could. Words can’t describe how I felt at that moment.

Then her parents explained.

“Do you know why Jessica hugged you, Jack? It’s because you’re bald. Jessica thinks you have cancer, too. And she’s trying to comfort you.”

Jessica passed away a few months later. If she had lived, she’d be celebrating her 20th birthday in 2012. Fortunately, her parents were later blessed with another daughter and a son — all healthy.

I share this story because Jessica’s compassion changed my life. I began by trying to generate a gift for her, and in the end her gift to me was greater — a lesson on how suffering can help people put aside their fears to serve one another.  She enabled me to realize that there is no greater gift than the gift of compassion.

When I was recently ordained a deacon in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, I incorporated Jessica’s story into my first homily.  I continue to share it today with others as I have with you.

Despite Jessica’s short lifespan, she lives on through her kindness and compassion.

That’s what I call leaving a legacy.

If you’ve been trying to get this message out to your prospects but haven’t had the time to compose and produce it on your own, we invite you to download one of our sample letters (download at the end of this post). There’s no charge and there’s no catch: We’re committed to making your job more easy.

(Letter #1 is somewhat brisk; Letter #2 is softer-edged. Your prospects; your choice.)

But before you download… there’s some debate about whether the decline in CGA rates should be marketed at all. Some professionals whose opinions we respect offer three reasons not to mention it to your prospects:

• The ACGA is reducing the rates to protect charities against risk. If a charity closes a large number of gift annuities between now and year-end, those gift annuities have a high risk of running dry or leaving less for the charity than the donor intends. Since your donors want to see you succeed, this may not be donor-centered or in your charity’s own best interest.
• By suggesting that your prospects need to act right away, you also plant the idea in prospects’ minds that after December 31, gift annuities will no longer be a worthwhile gift plan.
• You’ll get better results by focusing positively on gift annuities as the solution to current low rates of return in support of your mission.

We’re not taking a position either way – we leave that to your judgment. Clearly, if you’ve been soliciting an individual prospect for a gift annuity, use the impending decline in rates as the final push to close that gift. If you have existing gift annuitants who frequently set up new gift annuities, you will also want to notify them of the change. A broader-scale marketing effort? The decision is yours (and we’d like to hear about your results if you proceed).

Download: Letter 1; Letter 2

See how our friend Jack Miller customized the above two letters and took a more aggressive approach. You can download his version here.

by Viken Mikaelian

If you really think you can run a planned giving program on autopilot with outsourced help that supplies electronic tools online such as tax reference libraries for prospects and financial advisors, articles on gift laws, automated email blasts, complicated calculators, etc., this article is for you.

One of the scariest things I see is that many fundraisers are entirely, foolishly depending on this stuff (which no one reads) and on the Internet for marketing, and worse, simultaneously abandoning direct mail and other print media for outreach to new donors and prospects.  It is terrifyingly stupid, ugly, lazy, and cheap.

Now, before you turn a deaf ear to my advice, understand that I am in the e-marketing business, too.  So read on with an open mind.

If you were going to follow a leader who is “with it” and savvy about the Internet, who would you choose? Hard to beat Google. If anybody can safely rely on Internet marketing, it would be Google.  Right?

Sorry.  Wrong. Even the company that dominates online advertising does not rely on online advertising, and instead consistently uses sophisticated direct mail techniques to get its message across to new customers.

And you think you’re going to attract planned giving prospects with e-marketing reference libraries on laws pertaining to planned gifts?  Do you think planned giving is Entertainment Weekly where people are dying to read the next issue?

Okay, you say, “My prospects are young and all ‘with it’ and they are always facebooking and tweeting and emailing and are on top of it.”

Correct.  That’s all they are doing.

Let me hand you a quote from a recent issue of Target Magazine, reporting on one marketer’s plan: “Its designers figured the campaign would target a younger, more web-savvy audience that they didn’t think would be moved by paper materials. But many marketers have found that to be a flawed assumption, and studies earlier this year by ICOM and Experian showed that young adults do, in fact, respond better to print.”

Oops.

The non-profit marketer mentioned in the story was World Vision Micro, and it hastily added print marketing to the campaign to wrest victory from failure.

Here’s what Target editor Thorin McGee said about this:

“World Vision Micro found, as many have during the Internet era, that changing with the times is seldom as important as looking critically at the evidence and making the decisions it shows you have to make. Whether that means doing something new on social media or putting reps back on the old-fashioned telephone.”

I agree.

What is scariest to me is the huge number of fundraisers operating absent or in dire conflict with fact due to bad advice: failing to collect or ignoring evidence, making marketing decisions based on “monkey see, monkey do,” fads, peer pressure, and/or hype, not hard factual information. Frankly, I’m amused (perhaps ashamed) by so many fundraisers running around like headless chickens in this fashion or following the Pied Piper to their demise.

And I so appreciate the rare few (many of them my clients, large and small) who recognize facts and do not abandon their simple, common sense reliable marketing modalities that are working well for them, day in and day out.

Not so long ago, fundraising reflected the sunny optimism of the overall economy.  Our donors had secure, well-paying jobs; the value of their McMansions and vacation condos was projected to follow an endless upward arc; and when they opened their retirement-plan statements, the ending balance was always gratifyingly larger than the previous month’s.

What a difference a few years and some economic “uncertainty” make.

Today, nonprofits are facing the same financial dislocations – and reduced revenues – that confront individuals and for-profit organizations.  The cost of meeting our institutional needs keeps growing, but when we turn even to long-term, “loyal” donors for annual support, we find they are reducing their gifts, holding off to later in the fiscal year to make a commitment, or declining to make a gift altogether.

If fundraisers should be taking any lesson away from the last few years, it is this: Charitable gifts, especially annual gifts, are made from discretionary dollars. Yet we’re still asking the same prospects for more annual support; asking for that support more times each year; and getting the same or reduced dollar-value of gifts as a result of our efforts.

Now, nothing goes on forever, and we should be confident that economic conditions in general, and fundraising results in particular, will improve over time. Yet even if good times return soon, it’s possible – and mandatory – for fundraisers to rid themselves of their preconceptions, draw some non-traditional conclusions from the hard times we’re currently slogging through, and take some bold steps to secure their organization’s financial security in spite of them.

I discuss these detrimental preconceptions, radical conclusions and bold approaches in detail in my new white paper, Wake Up and Smell the New Paradigm: Bold Fundraising versus Diminishing Returns.

I was invited to speak at a national charity conference with over 800 attendees. I know some of them were Directors of Operations and Chief Executive Officers.

So where the heck were they hiding?

The conference featured something for everyone, topic-wise — from operations and finances to strategies and fundraising philosophy, they had it covered. The conference was a huge success… except for my session, which was on planned giving marketing.  Read on.

Attendees at my presentation were an enthusiastic group, including many young fundraisers. I was glad to see that, because even though planned giving represents the robust future of fundraising, many smaller programs are still weak in this area, and somewhat scared to delve into it. Not to mention even read about it. So I started out with some myth-busting:

“Many consultants, vendors and fundraisers make their living by making planned giving complex and complicated,” I exclaimed. “I’m here to keep it simple it. Because it’s not rocket science, and you should escape from anyone who tells you it is.” In fact, we should all be glad it’s not rocket science since that industry is suffering quite a bit here in the US and in Russia.

In the course of the presentation, however, I asked attendees as I always do what their individual positions were in their organizations, and was a little perturbed and unhinged when I found not a single CEO among them! Can we order some gray matter, please?

I then made a few targeted points:

• Kudos to all of you that came.  You’ve got a great future.
• Shame on your CEOs who are not here. They are a bunch of bird brains and please tell them I said so.
• Your CEOs are showing no leadership in exploring planned giving for your future, or theirs for that matter.
• There is no way a nonprofit will succeed in today’s or tomorrow’s economy without getting into planned giving.
• 95% of this country’s wealth is in the form of easy-to-get assets, while only 5% is in hard-to-get cash — what part of that don’t CEOs get?
• The nonprofits that embrace planned giving are the ones that succeed. The rest become extinct.

Any questions?

That is to say, in spite of the fact that almost inconceivably-huge numbers of e-mails are generated and sent over the Internet, the majority of them are dross — unwelcome and unlikely to be trusted by recipient.

Some numbers:

• Total e-mails per year: 14.4 trillion
• Total e-mails per day: 39.6 billion
• Of the e-mails, 19% were “legit” and 81% were “spam”

To put these numbers in context, let’s compare them to snail mail:

• Total snail mail per year: 177 billion
• Total snail mail per day: 485 million
• Email outnumbers snail mail 81 to 1
• Of the snail mail, 53% were “legit” and 47% were “junk”

Some quick comments:

1. Although e-mail is quick, easy and cheap to create and distribute, fully four fifths of it is garbage.
2. This preponderance of junk pretty much erases whatever “advantage” e-mail holds due to its convenience.
3. Snail mail’s “junk proportion” is much more positive (nearly 50/50, with the number of “legit” mail slightly larger) than e-mail.
4. Marketing via email means your message is drowned in a HUGE amount of junk that’s doomed to be deleted unread.
5. Marketing via snail mail gives you a better chance of being heard.
6. Don’t believe everything you hear: Some planned giving vendors promise a 46% open and read rate on their mass-emails!

Some new survey numbers indicate it better be.

The new Nielsen Norman Group “Web Usability for Senior Citizens” survey not only notes that more than 12 million Americans over the age of 65 use the Internet, but that those numbers are increasing. And dig this:

• Of those who decided to stop (quit) trying to execute their online tasks, 71% were age 65+, while only 29% were 21 – 55.
• Of those who ended their tasks because they had successfully completed them, only 39% were age 65+, and 61% were 21 – 64. And “a few” in each group stopped because they thought they had completed a task when in fact they had not.

What this means is your website better have intuitive navigation, clear content, and user-friendly tools. Or you’re going to lose some members of your most valuable demographic.