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 […]
Philanthropy and Tax Reform
Will the new tax law doom your nonprofit? Or will it stimulate the economy and be a fundraising boon?
What We Don’t Do
Companies like to boast about what they do. Apparently, many firms also like to do far more than they should. More and more in the planned giving community I see “marketing” firms promising their clients the world.
Get Rid of Your CGA Program!
Says the panicked board member… until you show him a better way to lower risk. Has this ever happened to you? A board member or finance officer who is unfamiliar with gift annuities sees a big liability on the books and panics. “Why are we doing this?” they ask. Their concern is understandable. A charity normally pays a donor around […]
Email vs. U.S. Mail
Trying to save money by using eMarketing? Think again. According to the 2015 Response Rate Report by Direct Marketing Association (who also does eMarketing), direct mail outperforms all digital channels in a big way. The response rate for direct mail was 600% higher than that all of the digital channels combined. This number is too big […]
3 Time Management Lessons from Mr. Brown
People are the best time investment you can make. The most common goal of executives who hire me for time management coaching is to free up time to invest in their teams and to spend with their families. Intuitively, they know that time spent with people forms crucial bonds, enables personal development and reduces fire drills. Yet, daily urgencies […]
Married Couples and Gift Annuities
Q: When a husband and wife fund a gift annuity, is it always joint and survivor?
Don’t Assume Your Donor Knows Details of His Gift
Donors often do not know the exact structure or details of their own planning, charitable or otherwise. They depend on their advisors. This is one reason it is so important to partner with advisors when working with donors.
Donors as Prospects for Large Major Gifts
Question In your Strange Myths section in Giving Tomorrow Magazine, the statement is made that “Most planned giving donors are not prospects for large major gifts.” Did the word “not” creep in there by mistake? Answer This is a really good question and common misperception. Over the last several years there have been a number […]
Message from CEO
First, a Thank You For those of you who are reading this and are clients of mine, I truly thank you for your business. When I started in 1998, I did it with the goal to make planned giving accessible to your average prospect. At the time, planned giving was so bogged down with legalese and […]