Tom Ligare and his colleagues at Planned Giving Marketing Solutions, LLC are promoting a gift type that helps build long-term endowment by making it easier for mid-level donors to engage in major giving. We decided to find out more about it…
I don’t think any of us would be in this business if we didn’t believe that philanthropy, giving, the act of charity – no matter how humble – ennobles everything it touches. But I don’t know whether to laugh or cry just now, because I learned recently that a man in Florida willed his house to the U.S. government so the sales proceeds could be applied to defray the National Debt.
There are all kinds of planned gifts — including those that allow you to leave personal property to a nonprofit.
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.
The more you stress your prospect, the more demands you make upon them, the more likely they are bail on you. Here are some tips on how to keep ‘em sweet.
William John Cameron (1879-1953) really lived the kind of life you would expect in an adventure novel or a Hollywood movie. We want to establish that to begin with, to counter any idea that he’s famous just for coming up with colorful aphorisms. The son of Manitoba pioneers, “W.J.” Cameron was one of 13 children in his family, and he is said to have once walked barefoot from Gladstone in Manitoba to Bottineau, North Dakota – a distance of approximately 100 miles – to go to work on his uncle’s farm. Later he founded a successful surgical equipment supply house in Chicago, and later still achieved fame as a big game hunter. He a chiefly remembered for exploring the Kalahari Desert in Africa and studying its people. But it’s undeniable that Mr. Cameron is also remembered for his pithy sayings. We found a couple of his zingers that are particularly pertinent to fundraisers, and we think they’ll be helpful to have in the back of your mind when things aren’t ducky, when the challenges are coming thick and fast, and a little ground truth is in order to keep you focused. First: “Money never starts an idea; it is the idea that starts the money.” We like this one because it reasserts the dominance of good, old fashioned brain work. Sure it’s hard to come up with good ideas, but that’s why you get a paycheck for doing it. Plus, it reminds us that throwing money at a problem never solved it. So it follows that having to work within a tight budget is only as limiting as you make it, because putting on your thinking cap is always free. Next: “Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action.” What Mr. Cameron means, of course, is that Thanksgiving is more than a federal holiday – it’s a way of life. More importantly, it’s an active way of life. From our perspective as fundraisers, the concept of giving thanks animates not only the donors who choose to make gifts, but also the response of good nonprofit professionals who thank, respect, and recognize the donors in return. And it’s also the response of the folks on the receiving end of the good works enabled by the gift (the charity’s mission). You might say that our vocation is thanksgiving in action throughout the year. Tomorrow is a day dedicated to its celebration. Categories: Giving, Planned Giving Marketing, Relationships
More than 40 years ago, comedian Steve Martin did an inflation routine that featured the line, “Gee, I got four dollars; I think I’ll throw it out into the street.” This came during the time of gas strikes and a recession in the 1970s, when many folks felt like their dollars weren’t going very far. These days, four dollars looks infinitely smaller than it looked back then. In 21st Century America, we’ve been desensitized to dollar amounts up to and including those with 12 zeros after them (i.e. numbers in the trillions). No surprise there: One hesitates to pay attention to numbers that big when they appear all the time with a negative sign and a dollar sign in front of them. The problem for fundraisers, of course, is that when even a million dollars looks paltry, donors can easily feel that their “small” gifts won’t make much of a difference to your organization. They need to know they’re wrong about that. It’s our job to tell them that every gift helps. So it’s crucial for planned giving to be specific: Let prospects know exactly how much good their donation will do in concrete, real-world terms. Explain to them how important all donors are to accomplishing your organization’s mission. Show them how all planned gifts contribute to growing your nonprofit’s endowment over the long term. Emphasize that your gratitude for and recognition of their gift is based on the fact that every dollar looks big to your nonprofit. And let’s all hope that one day in the future we won’t be so familiar with how many zeros there are in a trillion. Category: Giving
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