“I am too busy to think about planned giving”
Too busy? Or are you placing Planned Giving on the back burner, again? So many fundraisers make excuses, claiming they’ve placed planned giving on the back-burner because of tight budgets, smaller staffs and not enough time. Bull. There’s an underlying reason that none of us wants to acknowledge: Four years ago we asked fundraisers whether they believed planned giving is “where the money’s at.” A whopping 74% in the survey answered “yes.” But on the very next question, “Where do you spend your time?” a large number (82%) answered “raising cash gifts.” So if they know the correct answer, then why do they consistently place planned giving on the back burner? Because most fundraisers attend to the urgent, not to the important. An analogy can be made here between getting a toothache and visiting the dentist. If we never attend to the important (regularly visiting the dentist) one day we’ll have to attend to the urgent (a toothache that requires a root canal to repair). The same goes for retirement planning. If you’ve never proactively built your retirement savings (endowment), you’ll have to reactively work after you’re 70 just to make ends meet (like chasing and raising annual gifts). Hopefully not at Walmart. If fundraisers never attend to the important task of building a pipeline of planned gifts to provide a stream of long-term support, they will, year after year, waste time on the urgent task of picking up every $100 gift they can find simply to meet their quotas and keep their nonprofit afloat. And, year after year, they’re missing the fact that those consistent $100 givers make the perfect planned giving prospects. Considering the average bequest is over $68,000… I will stop right here and just say… it’s a no-brainer. Get proactive. Attend to the important, not the urgent. It’s all about your future. PS: Here are 21 tips on launching a planned giving program inexpensively. And here are 10 tips and strategies on marketing your program. PPS: Use this interactive assessment tool to see how ready you are for planned giving. And use this one to determine just where your board is at. Categories: Giving, Planned Giving Marketing, Relationships
How Far is Too Far?
“It’s never government, the economy, or tax laws that are our enemy. It’s ourselves.”— A CEO of a healthcare foundation, remaining anonymous.
Catholics and Wealth
Catholics are uniquely at odds with the accumulation of personal wealth. Perhaps, it is because the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles suggest a vocational lifestyle of communal frugality as the path towards salvation. The Acts of the Apostles, chapter2, verses 44-45 provides a microcosmic glance at the life of the early Church: And all who shared the faith owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and distributed the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed. Contemporary Catholics are not inclined to live a communal life; however, they are as part of the manifestation of the faith encouraged to share their resources with those in the Church that are not as privileged with material possessions and personal wealth. Thus, the dilemma for the modern Christian, to accumulate wealth or to live a life of austerity and frugality. There is indeed a dualism for the modern faithful Catholic that is only resolved with an acute understanding of the vocational responsibilities of all the faithful, namely to provide for ourselves and our families and to share personal resources with those in need. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches there is a human solidarity between all peoples and that the Christian is called to participate in the solidarity among peoples through friendship and social charity. (1939 CCC) With, the Church then promotes human solidarity as firstly manifested in the workplace and the remuneration for work, goods and service. (1940 CCC) Wealth accumulated from workplace is intended not just as a temporal instrument for the development of the faith, it is also an instrument that provides for a deeper spiritual relationship between peoples. Solidarity in the faith is enhanced by the positive usage of individual wealth when it is freely shared and given to others. Matthew 6:33 clearly illustrates the true motivation for the faithful believer: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well” With this as the operating principle of solidarity among all peoples, only then can the contemporary Catholic understand that the accumulation of personal wealth is not contradictory to the faith, it enhances the experience of faith by sharing personal resources with those that are in needs of financial and spiritual support. Money for Catholics is not the goal it is the means through which they are able to practice the faith and enable others to experience Christ in the shared resources of others. As Catholics, we have an aversion to the accumulation of wealth, and we should if the wealth is not used as a resource intended to freely share with others around us. The relationship of wealth and Catholics is awkward simply because we are called to a transcendent understanding of life in Christ. In reality, good Catholic stewardship of financial resources calls us to a spirituality of detachment from a personal preoccupation with the accumulation of temporal wealth. Good Catholics should view money as a resource intended to be shared with others and be detached from excessive desires for personal wealth. After all, all of our works and deeds are designed to proclaim and live the message of the Gospel, not shackle us to our temporal possessions. We are in the world but are called to a lifestyle not of this world. Discernment of the real value of money and material possessions is the real wake-up call for all Catholics. Share the faith, share the wealth! Such a axiomatic proclamation will get us all to eternal life! ::::::::::: Related: Planned Giving and the Church | Planned Giving Microsites for Churches Categories: Giving, Planned Giving for Financial Advisors
Simple Planned Gifts to Market This Year
Did you know that more than 90% of planned gifts are beneficiary designations? And by simply promoting beneficiary designations to your prospects, your organization will see its endowment grow by leaps and bounds. [Here’s a handy Beneficiary Designations Gift Planning Toolkit you can use.] Why? What makes this particular planned gift so attractive? It’s the simplicity. Giving a beneficiary designation is literally as easy as filling out a form. The form names the individuals and charities you want to support, and specifies the percentage of the assets you want each beneficiary to receive. They are very simple to give, easy to arrange, and usually do not require an attorney. So what’s the easiest way to market them? By mailing at least 4 postcards on beneficiary designations to your donors and prospects this year. Do not try to get creative with award-winning designs. Just concentrate on getting the word out. It doesn’t get any easier than that. Beneficiary designations can take multiple shapes, including: Cash Appreciated Securities/Investments Fund Accounts United States Savings Bonds Bank Accounts Jointly Held Accounts Life Insurance IRAs/Retirement Accounts CDs Any person who cares about your mission — rich or poor, educated or not — can easily make these kinds of gifts. And it won’t have any impact on their day-to-day cash flow! That’s why we like to call them “gifts anyone can make” or “gifts for the rest of us.” Again… By simply marketing Beneficiary Designations, you will see both your organization’s endowment and your career grow. With no fuss, no muss, and without any hassle! It’s the most ridiculously easy and blazingly fast way for you to get the word out to prospects about the easiest, most popular planned gifts. And they’re the easiest gifts for your organization to accept. By the way, before haphazardly developing any planned giving marketing tools, you should begin with a 12-Month Marketing Plan. This will be your road map to success. You should also learn how your basic planned gifts work (no matter what anyone says, you do not need to be a lawyer or an accountant). Read about gift planning vehicles. Categories: Giving, Planned Giving Marketing, Marketing Planned Giving
Future of Planned Giving
Wondering What’s Ahead? Stop speculating and find out what the movement to merge planned giving with major gifts and principal gifts really means. Download our special report [PDF; instant free download]. Our panel of six industry experts covers topics including, “What are the pros and cons of a merge?” “What are the implications for planned giving as a specialty?” “When is it time to ‘outsource’ gift planning?” and “What can the car industry teach the philanthropy sector? Jeff Comfort Camilyn Leone, Esq. Dr. Scott Janney Scott Lumpkin Lisa Repko Lynne Ierardi, JD Download our Special Report. Thanks to Dr. Rebecca Janney for conducting the interviews. New to planned giving? Learn how gift planning vehicles work (a 100 mile high review with videos). Or purchase The Ultimate Quick Reference Planned Giving Pocket Guide. Categories: Giving, Self Improvement
Is a Planned Giving Website Worth the Money?
The other day a colleague from another nonprofit, a fairly small one, told me he was leaning away from spending money on a new planned giving website. This is not the first development person I’ve heard struggle with this decision.
Why Getting In The Will Today Matters
Long-term study shows multiple benefits for charities to get in the estate plan sooner. We all know charitable estate giving is a big deal. In comparison, despite all of the media attention and conversation generated by corporate giving, annual estate giving has always been much larger. (In some years, charitable estate gifts are more than double all corporate gifts.) Of course, we all know that to receive any estate dollars, your organization must get in the will or other estate planning document. So, getting in the will eventually is clearly important. Get into the will today. But, new evidence is emerging as to why it is important not just to get in the will, but to get in the will today. The evidence comes from a large national survey called the Health and Retirement Study. This study, starting in 1992, tracks older adults (age 50+) year after year. It includes information about their current estate plans, their current charitable giving, and their post-mortem transfers. Because this study tracks changes in giving and changes in the estate plan for the same people over many years, we can now see what happens to current giving after charity is added into the estate plan. We do this by looking only at those older adults who didn’t have a charitable component in their estate plan and then later added charity into their plans. This way we are able to compare their giving before and after they added charity to the will. If you’re in their wills, you’re on their minds. So, what happens after people put charity into their will? Simply put, giving goes up. A lot. During the eight years before these people had added charity into their wills, their annual giving averaged $4,210. Two years after the will had changed to include charity, their average annual giving had doubled to $8,500. Even four years after the will had changed, their annual giving was still much higher than before averaging about $7,500. Although we can’t prove a cause-effect relationship (only that it happens at the same time), the connection makes sense. When the donor puts a charity in the will, the donor is treating the charity like a family member. That commitment naturally draws the donor closer to the cause, and makes it more likely that the donor will support in other ways. Why wait when you can benefit now? Some donors may increase their current giving by reasoning that, “Since the charity will be getting money from my estate anyway, why not give it now when I can see the impact?” Fundraisers use similar reasoning to convert a revocable estate gift to an irrevocable planned gift. The explanation goes, “You are planning to make the gift anyway, why not make it irrevocable and take an income tax deduction today through a [remainder interest deed, charitable remainder trust, charitable gift annuity, etc.]?” Want more? Get in early. Getting in the will early can help by increasing current giving and by opening conversations to convert the gift into an irrevocable planned gift. It may also help by increasing the size of the estate gift. In reviewing the over 12,000 decedents in the study, most charitable plans were added within five years of death. On average, one longer-term plan was worth four plans made in the last two years of life. In short, getting the charitable plan in the will earlier was associated with more dollars for the charity (as long as the charitable plan stayed in the will). Don’t forget about your bequest donors. So, there are a lot of good reasons to get in the plan early. But, one of those reasons is not so that the fundraiser can “count it and forget it.” The same study showed an enormous amount of end-of-life instability in the charitable component of the estate plan. If you forget about your planned bequest donors, they will certainly return the favor. Russell James, J.D., Ph.D., CFP is a professor in the Department of Personal Financial Planning at Texas Tech University. He directs the on-campus and online graduate program in Charitable Financial Planning. Contact: russell.james@ttu.edu RELATED TOOLS: Bequest Brochure Estate Planning Toolkit Categories: Beneficiary Designations, Bequests, Giving, Planned Giving Marketing, Marketing Planned Giving, Relationships
Google Uses Direct Mail Like Crazy
So it’s settled. Direct mail is a good idea. My husband and I run a small business. A very small business. So I was a little surprised to find out that we’re on Google’s mailing list. I’d understand if they sent me an email, or maybe a personalized video pop-up on YouTube. But no … the King of the Internet sent me a good old-fashioned letter, in a paper envelope, with a stamp, delivered by the postman. Yes, direct mail.
There Is Money Out There
But did you hear about the doggy hotel your nonprofit is competing with? $175 per night. Your pooch can enjoy a poolside room with a view ($50 extra), an evening backrub ($25 extra), and even a bedtime story ($20 extra).
Are Fundraisers Missing Out on Gifts of Real Estate?
Ignoring gifts of real estate? You are definitely missing out.
