Planned Giving is Not About Money.
Planned giving is about credibility and legitimacy. If you’re not taking planned giving seriously, your organization, and you, will not be taken seriously.
How ready are you? Take the test.
Answer the thought provoking questions in this diagnostic planned giving Readiness Assessment Calculator™. You can immediately review your score and see just where you and your organization stands. You will also be able to read a detailed explanation of each question and open up a new world of resources.
Is your board ready for planned giving?
Take the test.
If you’ve already taken the test with our Readiness Assessment Calculator™, now it’s time to evaluate your board. You can immediately review the score and see just where your board and your organization stands. You will also be able to read a detailed explanation of each question and open up a new world of resources.
Downloads
Conversation Starters, Donor Interview Form, Donor Characteristics Table, Sample Codicil, Year-End Solicitation Letter (starter), and more.
Your Weekly Marketing Tip
Weekly tips, tidbits, thoughts, ruminations and “insiders insights!”
Idea Center
Sample Marketing Ideas with visuals.
Learn (for Newbies)
Gift Plan Videos, 21 Steps to Launch a Program, 10 Marketing Tips, and more.
Frequent Questions
How does the IRA Rollover (QCD) work? Should I accept real estate? How often should I mail? What makes a donor stop giving? What motivates a donor to give?
The Planned Giving Bible™ ($250.00; December 2019)
This publication is the ultimate planned giving desktop reference tool. It covers all of the relevant information you’ll ever need as a professional gift planner.
Quiz: Are You Ready for Planned Giving?
Take the test. It’s an eye-opener and will guide you to a wealth of information.
An exclusive, end-to-end marketing strategy for sizeable accounts.
Our Enterprise Solutions are the first choice among national organizations, community foundations and large nonprofit centers with chapters or member organizations.
Specially designed, comprehensive turnkey packages available for 12, 24 and 36 months.
For the Small to Medium-Sized Shop
All the smarts you need “in a box”: Developed by two former Ivy Leaguers, UVA Law Professor of Philanthropy, and a fundraiser (and attorney) who has raised millions.
- Module 1: Planned Giving Website (Beneficiary Designations), Marketing, Outreach
- Module 2: Back Office Operations (tools and forms to formalize your program)
- Module 3: Building Donor Relations (tools, forms and advice)
Did you know that annual gifts and major gifts go up when you have a solid planned giving program in place? The Box is a great place to begin. Want grantors, grantees, sub-grantees and your board to take you more seriously? Follow all of the step-by-step instructions in The Box (The Box is so simply laid out that even an administrative assistant or intern can follow it.) It has all the content and verbiage you need from gift agreements, gift acceptance policies, evaluating your mission, approaching the best prospects, making the ask, and a lot more.
The Box is also helpful to consultants who want to focus on growing their practice instead of writing copy.
Purchase the entire Box or each module separately. More.
Planned Giving Websites
A planned giving website for your prospects and one for financial advisors is not an add-on to your marketing plan. It’s the hub. A must. And it gives them 24/7 access to your information for their philanthropic aspirations.
We deliver enterprise planned giving marketing solutions for your savvy donors down to simple planned giving websites for the smaller nonprofit.
eMarketing
Landing pages with digital outreach (e-broadcasts) is the way to get attention, build trust and convert casual browsers to active visitors.
Whether you need to explain charitable giving tax benefits, giving through a donor advised fund, or how federal income tax deductions of giving appreciated stock at year end work, we have marketing and legally approved language.
Print/Direct Mail
Fact: print marketing is far more powerful than e-marketing. So if you are planning on using e-marketing alone, don’t; balance it with print. Access a comprehensive series of gift planning tools and marketing materials a-la-carte or consider our Enterprise Solutions (a marketing bundle) with a 12- to 36- month comprehensive marketing plan.
Study shows what successful people have in common: they spent a lot of time with someone who had been successful. In other words, they learned how to be successful. They had friends, mentors, influencers and coaches.
Any fundraiser can raise more and larger gifts by using our proven marketing tools, because they get the point across to your donors without thought. We’re giving away a secret.
In today’s economic environment, a legacy giving initiative can help you tap the hidden potential of your most generous and loyal donors and transform the growth trajectory of your organization.
I am often asked, “Viken, do planned giving newsletters work?” Yes they do, but it is the wrong question to ask.