Planned Giving Marketing

You do not need a Ph.D. All you need is Street Smarts. Look at what John Ready did at Valley Gives Back.

You have a planned giving program — that’s great! And you get those occasional gifts, and that’s great too. But you’re wondering if your donors know that you exist.

I just love Tom Ahern’s sarcastic line: “Oh, goody! Look what’s come in the mail, honey. It’s the latest issue of our death brochure. Round up the kids!”

You can’t believe how hard it is for people to be simple, how much they fear being simple. They worry that if they’re simple, people will think they’re simpleminded. In reality, of course, it’s just the reverse. (~ Jack Welch, CEO General Electric.)

Nonprofit board members who serve on their investment advisory committees have a dual fiduciary role to perform: 1) They must protect the intent of the donor and the long-term viability of their organization; and 2) They have to manage endowment assets to provide a reasonable amount of income to support the causes that the funds are earmarked for.  

The classic cry of the binge fundraiser is “Oops… gifts are slow to come in. I guess I’d better send out a mailing.” If you find yourself in the middle of a quiet spell, thinking that a few actions, a couple of phone calls and a mailing here and there will get things moving again, you need to rethink your strategy.

I saw a blog post penned by another planned giving vendor. Its sole purpose: To trash the idea that fundraisers need a planned giving website. Very interesting …