PlannedGiving.com - Planned Giving

And I mean that. Really.

I’m pretty sure we all recognize that competition breeds excellence. You’ve got to keep getting better all the time to stay ahead of the other guy. So is there an ugly side to competition? Sure. It’s a jungle out here.

Big fish eat little fish. If there are going to be winners, there have to be losers. Welcome to the real world. Read more »

Elephants are pretty powerful.

They can weigh as much as 24,000 pounds, and stand as high as thirteen feet.  Their trunks are agile enough to pick up a single blade of grass, and strong enough to rip branches off of a tree.

Despite their enormous power, elephants can be tied down with a thin rope in their place. It doesn’t seem to make sense. Read more »

U.S. Department of the Treasury economist/researcher David Joulfaian has dug up some exciting data about donor behavior – basically that donors making bequests at death actually tripled (on average) the giving they made to charities during their life.

Here’s David’s U.S. Treasury research paper with details: http://theplannedgivingblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/treasury-bequest-analysis.pdf

As we said, the data are exciting, but not really surprising. Planned giving is where the money is, and bequests are the most popular form of planned giving. Legacy giving enables donors to make a transformative end-of-life statement; and planned gifts maximize that giving.

This information should remind us, however, that anyone who is not pursuing planned gifts is leaving money on the table and doing their career absolutely no good at all.

I recall a few years back producing a major gifts/planned giving brochure for a very large health system in Pennsylvania.

The VP decided to do the 20,000 piece mailing in-house. The brochure was accompanied by a cover letter that they produced, with each letter and matching #10 envelope addressed to a Dear Mr. and Mrs. Problem? All 20,000 recipients were medical school grads, so it should have said “Dear Dr. and Mrs.”

Oops. Chaos!

Well, not really. After I calmed down Mr. VP-Gone-Mad, he received 6 unpleasant complaining letters next week, each one loaded with a mighty check ($1000 to $6000).

The entire mailing had a 27% response rate. To this day I do not know why. But please, don’t try duplicating this error deliberately!

Playing Catch-Up is No Way to Start
By Jason Ketter

As nonprofits share best practices and reveal their most coveted success stories, you don’t often hear the word “competition.”

Wake up.

Competition is here and it is only going to get more intense. Read more »

And more than you think.

I like to spend time with my Dad and hear his wisdom. He’s a young 84 and recently told me that he wanted to cut back on making major charitable contributions.

“You know son, I’m getting up there, but we have good, long-lived genes and I may need this money when I’m 100.” And chances are he will live to be 100 (I hope I take after him).

“Dad, you’re sitting on appreciated stock. Why don’t you donate it, avoid gains tax, get a tax deduction, and receive guaranteed income for life?”

He asked, “Is that legal?” Read more »

That’s right. Being a charity doesn’t magically change business, economic, or marketing realities. So begin thinking like a business. Not a nonprofit.

Because the biggest problem among nonprofits is the “non.”

Read more »

Fundraisers can make “civilians” a little nervous when they’re around. What comments do you get when you tell folks what you do? “Ugh, I could never ask strangers for money!” “Well, I hope you didn’t bring your begging bowl with you tonight – this is a friendly party.”

You have to love what you do, and let that love show, to be effective as a fundraiser – and be welcome at neighborhood picnics. The organization you work for brings good into the world every day, and you are an integral part of that transformation. You’ve got the right to be sincerely proud of being a fundraiser; to be enthusiastic and, okay, even a little corny about it.

The Test

To see what image you’re projecting, try an experiment at the next function you attend.  With half a dozen people gathered around, introduce yourself and in 10 words or less tell them what you do.  Now – does the group immediately race to the bar? Or do they gather a little closer as someone asks:

“Really?  Tell me more.”

By Viken Mikaelian

Seems like the whole world’s building a bonfire these days, but you know what? Philanthropy just goes on.

For example, the other day a client asked me about the IRA Rollover. That eternal topic. No matter what’s in the headlines, fundraisers need to know about those IRAs. Like nothing else matters. Read more »

Giving USA 2011 was just released and not surprisingly, 3 of the top 10 charitable gifts were from bequests, again.

Bequest were 1, 2 and 9 on the list. Even more interesting, the largest bequest, from the Estate of Margaret A. Cargill, was $6 billion. Yes, that’s billion. Her gift alone is more than all of the rest of the Philanthropy 50 combined. The other two bequests in the top ten were $500 million and $125 million. The largest non-bequest was $372.6 million by Paul Allen.

Still think setting up a planned giving program isn’t worth your time?

Well, it’s a lot easier than you think with Planned Giving in a Box. Just visit PlannedGivingInaBox.Com — everything you need is just simply there.