Give and Take

Get your board on board and let them see the value of planned giving with these Myths and Facts. You can also purchase the expanded professional version of this post in PowerPoint. Perfect for your next board meeting or legacy society event. You can also evaluate your board’s readiness here. Engaging a board is critical for long term sustainability. The board of directors plays a critical role in the growth of your organization. And since many are “community players” they themselves can influence gifts. Want to make your job easier and be more successful? Engage with your board, and engage with advisors. Myth: Planned gifts compete with major gifts. Fact: Most planned giving donors are not prospects for large major gifts. Myth: We are not ready for planned giving. Fact: If you are a non-profit, you already are in the planned giving business. Myth: All planned gifts are deferred. Fact:

Sales and marketing are different things. Sales, or stewardship, is direct contact, and the point is to make a sale. Marketing is more about building awareness of your brand, your mission and your vision. Though it creates bonds in less personal ways than sales, marketing enables you to cast a wider net and create a sales funnel that directs revenue your way.

Mid-level donors are often overlooked when it comes to legacy giving conversations. They’re consistent, loyal, and quietly generous—yet rarely approached for more transformative gifts. That’s a mistake. Years ago, Tom Ligare and his colleagues at Planned Giving Marketing Solutions coined a term for a powerful strategy: Legacy Life Giving. It’s time to bring that concept back into the spotlight—with a modern twist. What Is “Legacy Life Giving”? Legacy Life Giving is a simple but underused technique: The donor purchases a life insurance policy, names your nonprofit as both owner and beneficiary, and spreads the premium payments over time—or pays in full upfront. The result? A mid-level donor can leave a $50,000+ legacy gift with a relatively modest outlay of cash. Why It Still Works Today We talk often about Donor-Advised Funds, appreciated stock, and blended gifts. But life insurance has quietly remained one of the most efficient vehicles for legacy

I don’t think so. If you think “having no limits” is part of your job description, think again. Everybody has limits. Even fundraisers.

The article discusses how James H. Davidson, Jr. left his $2.175 million estate to help pay down the national debt, but questions whether this well-intentioned gift truly created a lasting impact given the debt's enormous size ($34 trillion). It suggests his legacy could have made a more meaningful difference through endowed scholarships or lecture series rather than becoming "a rounding error" in government finances. The piece ultimately emphasizes the importance of strategic giving and planned legacy gifts.RetryClaude can make mistakes. Please double-check responses.

The Digital Marketing Myth Are you relying exclusively on digital tools to run your planned giving program? Think again. Many fundraisers and now advisors depend entirely on outsourced electronic solutions—tax reference libraries, gift law articles, automated emails, and complex calculators—while abandoning proven traditional methods. This shortsighted approach undermines fundraising effectiveness. As someone deeply involved in digital marketing myself, I offer this perspective with firsthand knowledge of both its power and limitations. Learning From Digital Giants Consider Google—the undisputed leader in online advertising. If any organization could succeed using exclusively digital marketing, it would be Google. Yet Google consistently employs sophisticated direct mail campaigns to acquire new customers. Meanwhile, fundraisers expect to attract planned giving prospects with online reference libraries about gift laws? Planned giving isn’t Entertainment Weekly—donors aren’t eagerly awaiting the next update. The Youth Misconception “But my prospects are young and digitally savvy,” you might argue. They’re constantly on

I was invited to speak at a national charity conference with over 800 attendees. Some of them were Directors of Operations and even Chief Executive Officers. So where the heck were all the leadership types hiding? The conference had something for everyone—operations, finance, strategy, and even high-level fundraising philosophy. It was a huge success. Except for my session on planned giving marketing. Read on. The room was filled with enthusiastic young fundraisers, which was great to see. Planned giving represents the robust future of fundraising, yet many smaller programs are still weak in this area. Some are even scared to touch it—let alone read about it. So, I kicked things off with some myth-busting: “Many consultants, vendors, and fundraisers make their living by overcomplicating planned giving,” I declared. “I’m here to simplify it. It’s not rocket science. And if anyone tells you it is, run the other way.” (Besides, rocket science itself isn’t doing

There are all kinds of planned gifts — including those that allow you to leave personal property to a nonprofit. 

Our clients, friends and prospects often ask which term is better to use for their marketing efforts, “Planned Giving” or “Gift Planning”. This is a decades-old dispute and I am getting tired of it. So I decided to write this blog to end the argument. If anyone is ready to spar, sharpen your blade (well, pencil is okay). A few nonprofits have migrated to Gift Planning because it sounds more “sophisticated.” Others argue that Planned Giving has been around too long and it’s time for something “new.” And some “feel” it makes better sense and sounds better. This is all just self-serving theory. [By the way, we own both domains: giftplanning.org and plannedgiving.org; so we do not have a reason to be financially biased in this article.]

Transparency Is Its Own Reward In the nonprofit sector, transparency is more than a buzzword—it’s a fundamental principle that underpins trust, accountability, and donor confidence. Operational openness allows donors and stakeholders to see that an organization is managed responsibly and that their contributions are utilized effectively to further its mission. The Importance of Transparency in Nonprofits Transparency serves as a cornerstone for building and maintaining trust between a nonprofit and its supporters. When donors perceive an organization as open and honest about its operations, financials, and decision-making processes, they are more likely to contribute and remain engaged. Key aspects of transparency include: Clear Communication of Mission and Goals: Donors should understand the organization’s purpose and objectives. Clearly articulating the mission helps align donor values with the organization’s aims. Financial Accountability: Providing access to financial statements, budgets, and reports demonstrates responsible stewardship of funds. This openness reassures donors that their contributions are

The idea of ethics, as an active, engaging, and permeating part of what we do, falls well short of where it needs to be in our daily routine.

Let’s be honest: direct mail has a branding issue. While your latest planned giving newsletter may be thoughtfully written, beautifully designed, and filled with donor love, to the average person opening their mailbox, it’s just another unsolicited item in a pile of bills, catalogs, and promotional junk. They didn’t ask for it. They don’t expect it. And often, they don’t want it. Simply said, “It’s junk mail.” In fact, there’s a growing grassroots rebellion against mail marketing of all kinds. CatalogChoice.org, for example — a nonprofit “do not send” registry — has helped more than one million individuals and businesses stem the flow of junk mail since its founding in 2007. Your planned giving newsletter may not be “junk” to you — but to a prospect who doesn’t know you or isn’t thinking about charitable estate planning right now? It might be. Which means your carefully crafted message is likely

The more you stress your prospect, the more demands you make upon them, the more likely they are bail on you—that’s donor relations 101. Here are some tips on how to keep ‘em sweet.

From a fundraiser’s point of view, or course, a perfect world would include all prospects coming directly to the fundraiser or her organization for advice on giving. But numbers indicate fewer potential donors are seeking advice from NPOs and their personnel. They are turning instead to legal and financial professionals.

A friend once relayed an interesting anecdote about simple, effective messaging that just so happens to be a perfect teaching moment for those of us in the fundraising world. It seems she was helping out an elderly couple who live down the hall of her apartment complex. The wife had a health problem that had just become acutely symptomatic. My friend was assisting by trying to find a hospital-type bed for the lady to use. Clear Communication In describing the want-ad that she ran on Craigslist, my friend said, “I didn’t really lay it on thick. I just said it was an older couple and the lady had a health condition and they needed the bed and they didn’t have a lot of money, and could anybody donate one?” Talk about effective messaging. My friend quickly discovered that she didn’t really need to “lay it on thick,” because the solicitation,

Many years ago, for my sins, I did time on the editorial staff of a major urban “alternative newsweekly.” During that time I overdosed daily on badly conceived and written press releases. They were all hardcopy and they arrived via snail mail – that was the only game in town circa 1989. Every day I would read several such releases that would evoke from me no such response as, “That’s interesting! I think I’ll write about it!” but rather “This collateral is non-information-bearing.” Then I would crumple up the paper with extreme prejudice and launch it into the circular file with my opinion of the sender similarly trashed.

I was lying on the beach with my wife a few years back when a client buzzed through my cellphone, declaring in a sorrowful voice, “I’m going to have to apologize to all of them. In fact, I am writing the apology letter now.”

You’ll find it up there at the top of the list of disillusioning truths: “There ain’t no free lunch.” It’s true in fundraising, of course; but it can be obscured by the endless parade of miraculous “next big things” that tend to put our common sense out of focus. For example, the seemingly limitless marketing possibilities offered by the Internet have charmed some planned giving fundraisers into the mistaken belief that this new miracle vector will do their job for them. Make no mistake: With planned giving on the Internet as with anything else, lack of effort and commitment translate directly into lack of results,

There’s something graceful about smart messaging. Maybe that’s why it works. And fundraisers competing for charitable dollars need every marketing advantage they can get in engaging and persuading prospects.

How do you view planned giving? Is planned giving simple, or complicated? One of the biggest misunderstandings I see in the nonprofit world is the mistaken belief that planned giving is complex and mysterious.

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