Give and Take

Owners of luxury motor coaches and RVs, such as Marathon Coaches and other high-end brands, can have the best of both worlds: a vacation with all the comforts of home, and an opportunity to shape their philanthropic legacy that also provides a current charitable tax deduction.

Love is in the air. (Well, actually it’s not … not any more or less than it is in January or March anyway. It’s just that the greeting card and flower and chocolate industries want us to believe this is the month of l-o-v-e.) But whether you’re a Valentine’s Day cynic or a fan of the holiday, let’s talk about love for a moment. I’ve been in the planned giving marketing industry for 25 years, and for 25 years I’ve been saying that planned giving is a people business. If you love people, you will go far in planned giving (and in your career). You see evidence of this truth every month on the cover of this magazine. Each issue we feature a leader in nonprofit development. While their stories and backgrounds are politics vary greatly, there’s a common theme that unites them all: they love people. In the last …

Several times a year, I hear from clients who have questions about other vendors’ latest products. Usually, those questions go something like this: “Did you see the new Widget that Company B is offering? It practically guarantees donors will be knocking down our door. My boss wants us to buy it. Why don’t you offer it, too?” The Widget never turns out to be anything ground-breaking. It’s usually just a slightly new spin on an old tool. It’s a “new” calculator that lets donors estimate annuity payments and tax breaks. Or it’s an app that lets someone make monthly annual gifts from their smartphone.  It might be a “new” eblast template, or even an online will maker. The truth is, there’s really nothing new that’s going to make your planned giving program an overnight success. There are no new products or services that are going to have donors breaking down …

The nonprofit world needs more Debs—people who say it like it is, who recognize planned giving is for average ordinary people, who aren’t afraid to say the hard things when they need to be said.

Did you know that people now have shorter attention spans than... goldfish? As wild as that sounds, there was a study by Microsoft suggesting just that. Whether it’s true or not, one thing is clear: human attention spans are short. This creates a big challenge for anyone trying to build an online presence for their giving programs.

A client told me recently that we should be publishing more about what’s NEW in planned giving. Seems reasonable, right? Everyone likes new stuff. We all want to know the trends, be on the cutting-edge, sound knowledgeable at professional events.

Storytelling is your nonprofit’s most powerful marketing tool. But everyone else is using it, too. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you need storyselling—a strategic form of storytelling designed to motivate your donors and prospects to action.

Forget what you've heard about planned giving. Just do the math. Baby Boomers, who are among the wealthiest and most charitable Americans, are dying at a rate of about 6,000 per day. And unless your nonprofit has a planned giving program, that means about $6 billion in estate dollars is being lost every day. Unless you’re planning to fail, it’s time to reprioritize that marketing budget. By the way, we also "explain" what's a billion. It's an eye-opener.

You’ve seen it before: a nonprofit posts about a successful event on its Facebook page (or LinkedIn, or Twitter, or Pinterest, or…) and racks up thousands of likes and shares. The team high-fives and takes a bow and … then what happens?

Asking an influential member of your community for a large gift is often an intimidating task. While effective donor prospecting can eliminate some of the anxieties involved, tools like a major donor society also go a long way to secure a big ask. Major donor societies provide exclusive, insider access to your highest-dollar donors, generating significant revenue by developing intimate relationships with excellent stewardship.

Estate gifts, also known as planned or legacy gifts, are a vital component of many nonprofits’ fundraising strategies. Soliciting bequests or estate gifts can significantly impact an organization’s financial sustainability and long-term success. However, soliciting estate gifts requires a delicate and thoughtful approach to ensure that donors feel respected, valued, and inspired. Here are some essential Dos and Don’ts to guide your nonprofit’s fundraising and planned giving efforts.

Let's face it: Estate planning isn't exactly a dinner table conversation starter. But trust me, it's one of those adulting tasks that's way more important than we often give it credit for. So, what's all the fuss about?

It may seem silly, but it’s true — and it’s a step many donors forget. A 2019 Special Report from Giving USA found that just 4 percent of donors always report their planned gifts to organizations, and 38.7 percent sometimes inform the organizations.