People often ask me about my life. What’s my background? Where’s my accent from? Where did I grow up? Where did you meet your wife? One of these days I’ll get around to answering all that... But the most common question I get is, “Viken, how did you get into planned giving?” Answer: By Accident.
Fundraising professionals focus on income as a measure of giving ability. The worried fundraiser thinks this way. “The prospective donor won’t give, because she won’t save money by being charitable. I won’t raise enough money to make my annual goals. My charity won’t accomplish its mission, and I’ll lose my job. What am I going to do?”
What kind of “asker” are you? Confident, well-dressed, professional? Or more of a beggar? Someone apologetic, mincing their way through the ask? One type is going to succeed often, and the other will almost always fail. Can you guess which is which? You’ll find the answer — and other great advice on making the ask — on our blog in a guest post from author, public speaker and planned giving specialist Dr. Rebecca Price Janney.
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If you're new to planned giving, you're lucky you found this page. Established program? It's a good refresher and has useful tips for your team.
"Direct mail is too expensive," you say. Well, fine. Use something cheaper that does not work nearly as well.
If you’re not going after planned gifts, the bigger fish next door is. And since planned gifts are gifts from the heart, they inspire more cash gifts, too. This means, if the nonprofit next door wins your planned gifts, your cash gifts will walk out the door, too.
“Oh, you’re one of those people who care about the black squiggly marks,” the Director of Development told me.
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
It's hard to explain how a Donor Advised Fund works to a donor. And when you try, they're yawning. This creative marketing copy helps them get the point.
A direct mail campaign that's not so vanilla. Only in the for-profit world. Would you have had the stomach for it?
A donor can donate a house, get a deduction, live there for life, and receive an annuity from the donation for life. Hmm ... does not sound right.
I am amused when a client hires us and then tells us what to do. My favorite inquiry is, “We’d like to send out a planned giving postcard and see if something will happen.”
Remember when news broke that Tiger Woods was cheating — not at golf, but on his wife? The media jumped all over the story.
Are you nurturing your donors? One way to do it is by asking them to tell their story. People like to talk about themselves. It’s natural.
Some people in our industry have made planned giving so moribund that they can put a cat on speed to sleep. Vendors included.
Are you relying on dumb ways to seek donations? A few years ago, a darkly humorous Australian public service ad to promote railway safety went viral. Called “Dumb Ways to Die,” the campaign was set to a catchy song with lyrics including, Set fire to your hair. Poke a stick at a grizzly bear. Eat medicine that’s out of date. Use your private parts as Piranha bait. I have to admit, it was catchy enough (definitely not vanilla marketing!) to get my toes tapping — and it made me think, “there’s some pretty dumb ways to ask for donations, too.” And so, without further ado, I present, Dumb Ways to Seek Donations: 1) Approaching a prospect for an ask without research. Your chances of turning a prospect into a donor increase exponentially when you have a little background info. What causes are they passionate about? Do they have kids? Did
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
Most “experts” place the practice as having been birthed in the 1970s — or maybe as far back as the ’40s. So it’s safe to say the first planned gift must have been made sometime in those decades. Right?
"It's never government, the economy, or tax laws that are our enemy. It's ourselves."— A CEO of a healthcare foundation, remaining anonymous.
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