Building a legacy giving program comes down to marketing

While we might like to think that a donor with 10+ years of giving history already has our nonprofit in their will, they may need to learn that leaving a gift is an option. That’s where legacy giving marketing comes in.

Through marketing communications, nonprofits can educate donors about the opportunities to leave a legacy gift and the tax benefits for their loved ones. But unlike making an ask for a one-time annual gift, getting the gift takes more than one ask and a few follow ups. It also takes more than passive marketing efforts.

Nonprofits who are succeeding in building large legacy giving programs are proactively marketing legacy giving to donors. Through face-to-face conversations, direct mail pieces, and email, nonprofits who approach legacy giving as a long-term, multi-channel effort are getting more traction.

But wait! Aren’t legacy giving donors direct mail donors?

To that I say, but who are your legacy donor prospects? It’s not just Boomers. In fact, most people tend to write a Will during a big life change such as marriage or having a child — life changes that often take place in people’s 30s and 40s. Conversations about gift and estate planning may need to happen with people younger than you think.

Indeed, the legacy gifts that your organization may receive in the next 20 years might be from Boomer direct mail donors. However direct mail donors (even those over 65) have email addresses and are often on a nonprofit’s email list, and not all of them are legacy donors yet.

4 steps to integrate legacy giving marketing into your email program

Email is a scalable and highly effective way to get legacy giving marketing materials in front of your donors. If your nonprofit is ready to up your legacy giving game, here are four steps to get started integrating legacy giving into your email program.

Step 1: Identify your segment(s)

Have an open mind when it comes to your legacy giving data. Your best legacy giving prospects are your most loyal donors, regardless of the dollar amount they give. Loyalty can look like making annual gifts for years, volunteering, being a board member, or being a monthly donor.

To keep things simple, you might start with one segment of legacy giving prospects. Over time, as you see who is most engaged with your legacy giving content (see Step 4), you may develop other segment strategies for those donors who are more engaged.

Wealth screening can also impact your segmentation choices. Specifically, someone’s net worth can indicate whether they may be a prospect for a Charitable Remainder Trust or a Charitable Gift Annuity.

You can also find some great insights on segmenting legacy prospects by generation in this webinar.

Step 2: Build a plan to consistently roll out legacy giving messaging in email

Once you know who you want to target through your legacy giving marketing, you need a plan to consistently get legacy giving messaging in front of the audience. Consistency is often the biggest challenge nonprofits face with legacy giving. It’s easy to send a one-off mailing but it can feel like a heavier lift to be consistent. The balance here is committing to a cadence you know you can execute.

If you’re just getting started, my recommendation is once per quarter. If you have been working on a legacy giving program for a while or have more capacity, aim for once a month.

In these regular email marketing pieces about legacy giving, the goals are to 1) educate donors about legacy giving opportunities and 2) help donors see that people just like them leave legacy gifts.

We often see news stories about mega-transformational legacy gifts so it’s easy for someone to feel like their gift of $5,000 or $25,000 may not make a difference. That’s where storytelling can be a powerful ally for legacy giving. Stories offer social proof and when organizations pick diverse donor stories, they can be more effective at reaching different cross-sections of the donor audience.

If you’d like to see some examples of legacy donor stories, take a look at these examples from BC Women’s Hospital Foundation and these legacy donor stories from the Canadian Red Cross.

With any legacy giving email you send, giving subscribers content to click on is key. Your email could be a teaser of a story or a link to a legacy giving story video. The reason we want people to click on content is so that over time we can see who is most engaged with legacy giving content. Either within the content or in the email, be sure to link to your legacy giving informational page. Again, this will be valuable information about your prospects.

Step 3: Strategically use surveys

One of the best tools we have to get legacy giving prospects to raise their hands is surveys. With our clients, we typically run an annual prospecting survey to update the donor file. It’s a short email with just one question that gets to the most important information for the fundraising team: Is someone planning to or considering a legacy gift?

Here’s an example of one of these survey emails.

These kinds of emails are extremely effective because of the ability to answer the survey quickly and easily track responses. Over time, they will help you build a better legacy giving portfolio.

Step 4: Leverage your email user data to take things multi channel

The fuel for your legacy giving marketing is your data. With email, you have an incredible wealth of engagement data that will allow your team to do things like:

• Personally follow up with subscribers who are highly engaged with legacy content
• Send targeted direct mailings
• Curate better event invite lists legacy giving events

Email has long been an incredible tool for fundraising and there are so many possibilities for legacy giving marketing. With time and consistency, your nonprofit will begin to build a legacy giving program that can provide sustainability for its future.

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Maybe you’ve tried numerous ‘win back’ campaigns that failed to convert them, and you’re wondering whether you should just delete them from your database.

Don’t do it!

A massive generational shift in giving is happening right now with donors aged 60 and older.

The great wealth transfer is officially here. Older Americans—Baby Boomers—have massive wealth, and trillions of dollars will be passed down as members of this generation pass away.

Making a legacy gift to charity can lower their taxes. They can trade a gift for income, which could be income back to them or a tax-free inheritance to their children.

Why should you care? If you’re like most nonprofits, the average age of the donors in your file is 64.

You may not know the average age of your donors. Most nonprofits don’t. Why? Because they don’t collect their birthdates.

Luckily, that’s an easy fix. You can run a date of birth append on your files to find your donors’ birthdays. A public demographic information database sources this data.

How are my older lapsed donors a literal giving goldmine, you ask?

It’s expected that they’re lapsing. Think about your grandparents’ activities before you lost them. They likely slowed down. Stopped volunteering. Stopped donating to charity. This typically happens in the final years of life. People are living longer. And wealthy people live the longest.

So this is *not* the time to stop communicating with them. If you don’t communicate with these donors in their last years of life, the odds of them not making that gift to you increase as much as 50%, according to Russell James, PH.D, JD, one of the world’s foremost experts on planned giving—even if they’re a member of your legacy society.

The chart below shows the latest fundraising results from Giving USA. While total giving is down—led by a decline in individual giving—giving by bequests has remained strong. How strong? Deceased people literally give more than corporations.

When you consider that the great wealth transfer is now upon us, it may even rise.

Donor-advised funds (DAFs) can help with legacy giving by enabling donors to name a successor(s) to the fund who can continue their philanthropic legacy. Donors can designate successor(s) as individuals, including their spouse, child, other descendants, or representatives. Donors can also designate an IRS-qualified 501(c)(3) public charity as their successor.

One thing is certain: in times of economic uncertainty, innovative nonprofits work to diversify their sources of revenue.

Wondering how you can make the most of this opportunity? Here are three simple strategies:

1. Love on your oldest friends, and keep communicating with older lapsed donors. Don’t remove them just because you haven’t heard from them.
2. Do a stellar and robust job promoting legacy giving. Making donors aware that you value legacy gifts is the first step to getting them. According to Agents of Good, “With good marketing, roughly 2.5% of your donors will add a gift to you in their wills. If you have 6,000 active donors, that’s 150 bequests.
3. Steward donors who’ve named you in their estate will.

If you have any reservations, remember this advice from my friend Wayne Olson, JD, author of Big Gifts, Small Effort: “Planned giving is the only way people can support a charity that brings them tremendous satisfaction, yet has no impact on their lifestyle, other than to improve it.”

We’d love to hear about your efforts to re-engage lapsed donors. Please tell us more about what strategies have worked for you. Have you stayed in touch with older lapsed donors and marketed your legacy program to them? We’d love to hear more about your experiences in the comments below!  

The post Strategies To Re-Engage Your Lapsed Donors appeared first on Bloomerang.

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In this session, the webinar delved into optimizing legacy giving stewardship programs to maximize donor engagement and support.

Key Takeaways:

• Emphasizing personalized communication to deepen relationships with legacy donors.
• Leveraging storytelling techniques to connect donors emotionally to the impact of their contributions.
• Utilizing data analytics to tailor stewardship strategies and enhance donor retention.

The post How To Optimize Your Legacy Giving Stewardship Program appeared first on Bloomerang.

It’s a significant opportunity to increase your nonprofit’s planned gifts by making your donors aware of this. Charity Navigator has documented that 10% of overall giving comes from bequests made by Wills.

The easiest planned gift for your supporters to make is to leave a portion of their estate to your nonprofit as a bequest in their Will. Even if that gift is only 1% of a donor’s total estate, it can have a huge impact.

According to Giving USA, the average planned gift in the US is more than $78,000 per donor’s estate. Yet, only about 30% of Americans say they have a Will, which means that most of your supporters probably need to make one.

Even if you don’t have a planned giving campaign devoted to Make-A-Will Month, you should at least promote it several times via email, social media, and other communications. Mailing a letter as well is best practice. There are many free samples of a “include us in your Will” donor letter online if you search that subject.

You should also include this resource in your donor communications to help your donor’s plan their future giving. This free, online resource guides the donor through the process of creating a legally valid Will in 20 minutes or less.

The fact is that many of your donors mistakenly think that Wills are only important if you have a lot of money or property. That is simply not true. You must debunk this myth in your donor communications, and this list of the ten reasons a Will is important will help you do that.

When you ask your donors to include your nonprofit in their Will, also ask them to let you know when they do. Here’s an example from the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund of a website announcement and related form that you can model your nonprofit’s message after.

Thoughts on planned giving from 860 donors

Using data from a survey with 860 donors, we learned the following:

• The average age donors wrote their first Will was 44 years old and almost all (91.6%) used a legal advisor to write their Wills.
• Over half (53%) of donors established their first planned gift at the time of writing their first Will.
• 7% of study participants felt their estate planning process was “very easy” or “somewhat easy” with another 22.9% reporting feeling neutral about the process.
• The average age at which donors made their first planned gift was 52.8 years old. Among gay and lesbian donors, the average age of first gift was slightly younger, at 50 years old.
• Respondents were most likely to make a charitable bequest (68.1%), followed by a charitable beneficiary of a retirement plan (29.7%), insurance policy beneficiary (18.5%), and charitable trust (18.5%). Interestingly, donor-advised funds (DAFs) surpassed charitable gift annuities in the donor sample.
• The top three motivations donors cited for making a planned gift were: the importance of the cause; the belief that the nonprofit makes a significant impact; and the donor’s ability to make a larger gift through their estate than during the donor’s lifetime.

How do you plan to take advantage of Make-A-Will month? 

The post Make-A-Will Month: Here’s Why You Should Prioritize Planned Giving In August appeared first on Bloomerang.

1. Research and identify potential donors

Begin by identifying individuals who have demonstrated a strong commitment to your organization. Look for donors who have a history of regular giving, long-term involvement, or a personal connection to your mission. Consider starting your research with the board, volunteers, and staff members of the nonprofit to see if any of them meet the profile for a legacy gift.

Your research about the donor can be anecdotal or extensive, depending on your support staff and budget. Anecdotally, you can ask people who know the donor to share information about them. More extensive research (that can be gleaned by engaging a professional prospect research service) would include finding out what they’ve given to other nonprofits and if they have a donor-advised fund or family foundation. Consultants gather this information to guide you in your cultivation and solicitation.

Profiling donors ready to make a planned gift is not an exact science, but we can identify certain characteristics and indicators that may suggest a prospect’s readiness.

Here are common traits associated with donors most likely to consider a planned gift:

• Long-standing Support: Donors with a history of supporting your organization over an extended period are always more likely to consider a planned gift. They’ve demonstrated a deep commitment to your cause and have developed a strong relationship with your organization.
• Passion for the Cause: Donors who have a genuine passion and connection to your mission are more inclined to consider a planned gift. They believe in the long-term impact of your work and may wish to create a legacy for their philanthropic efforts.
• Affinity and Engagement: Donors who actively engage with your organization–the ones that attend events, volunteer, or serve on committees or boards–are often more receptive to discussions about planned giving. Their involvement shows a higher level of commitment to your organization and a greater degree of interest.
• Financial Capacity: Donors who have accumulated significant assets or wealth may be more open to making a planned gift. They have the financial resources to support both their personal needs and philanthropic aspirations, making them prime candidates.
• Life Stage and Age: While age alone is not a determining factor, donors who have reached certain life stages, such as retirement or active estate planning, are more likely to consider making a planned gift. They may be evaluating their financial and philanthropic goals, and thinking of ways to leave a lasting impact.
• Prior Charitable Giving: Donors who have previously made significant charitable contributions or steadily supported other organizations have already enjoyed the benefits of philanthropy. They may be more receptive to conversations about furthering their charitable legacy.
• Personal Connections: Donors who have been a beneficiary of your services or have a family member that exemplifies your cause, may have a higher inclination to consider a planned gift. Their emotional connection can be a motivating factor for making a lasting impact.

2. Cultivate relationships

Build a strong relationship with potential donors before discussing legacy giving. Engage with them regularly through personalized communications, invitations to events, or one-on-one meetings. Show genuine appreciation for their support and keep them informed about your organization’s impact.

3. Educate yourself

Familiarize yourself with the different types of legacy gifts, such as bequests, charitable trusts, life insurance policies, or retirement account designations. Understand the associated legal and financial implications so that you can answer any questions that may arise. You don’t have to become an estate attorney, but you should try to understand how the various legacy investments are structured. Also, seek out professional fundraising networks you can join that usually are quite extraordinary learning venues. In New York City for example, the association of planned giving professionals is called the “Philanthropic Planned Giving Group of Greater New York” (PPGGNY) which brings together individuals involved in the field of planned giving, including fundraisers, attorneys, financial advisors, and nonprofit professionals. Through webinars, networking, and professional development opportunities, the group strives to promote and enhance the understanding and practice of planned giving.

4. Develop a legacy giving program

Create a comprehensive legacy giving program that illuminates the benefits of leaving a legacy gift to your organization. Highlight the impact it can make, the recognition opportunities available, and the ways you will steward and honor the donor’s legacy. Our colleagues at FreeWill.com share useful steps and examples.

5. Establish a legacy giving committee

Form a committee within your organization, comprising relevant staff members, board members, and volunteers who are knowledgeable about legacy giving. This committee can help guide the process, develop strategies, and provide support during discussions with potential donors.

6. Craft a clear and compelling message

Develop a case for support, a concise and persuasive message to articulate the importance of legacy giving. Emphasize the opportunity for donors to have a lasting impact on the causes they care about and leave a meaningful legacy for future generations. The document should be concise and graphically appealing. A short, high-quality video would also serve well. Consider testing your written and/or visual messages with a small group of five to ten trusted colleagues before disseminating them more broadly.

7. Arrange personal meetings

Once you have identified potential legacy gift donors, request a personal meeting with each to learn about their philanthropic goals and aspirations. Broach the topic with sensitivity and respect, recognizing that legacy giving is a deeply personal decision. Many donors you encounter haven’t yet given this option much thought. Drawing them out to talk about their legacy should be an inspiring process for them.

8. Tailor the conversation

During the meeting, listen attentively for the donor’s values and interests. Tailor the conversation to align their philanthropic aspirations with the mission of your organization. If possible, demonstrate how a legacy gift can help achieve the donor and nonprofit’s shared goals.

According to a study conducted by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, analyzing data from various sources, including the IRS’s Statistics of Income, bequest giving represents 6-9% of total charitable giving in the United States. This indicates that a small, but sizable portion of donors include a nonprofit organization in their estate plans. (In contrast, according to Giving USA 2021, a compendium of comprehensive data on charitable giving in the United States, approximately 69% of American households made a charitable contribution in 2020.)

But look again at the elements that enable us to construct a profile of likely bequest donors, and keep in mind the age, wealth, and connection factors as they apply to the person with whom you’re meeting.

9. Provide detailed information

Offer comprehensive information about legacy giving options, including written materials, brochures, and legal resources. Ensure that potential donors have access to professional advisors, such as estate and trust attorneys or financial planners, to address their specific questions. Be sure to provide sample language for donors to use in their Will to arrange for your nonprofit to receive a portion of what remains after estate taxes.

10. Follow up and maintain relationships

After the initial conversation, be sure to send your donors personalized follow-up letters expressing gratitude for their time and reiterating the importance of their potential legacy gift. Continue to nurture the relationship by keeping donors apprised of your organization’s progress and maintaining regular communication.

Remember, legacy giving is a momentous decision for donors, so be patient, respectful, and understanding throughout the process. Building trust and maintaining strong relationships is the key to successfully securing legacy gifts.

What’s your experience with the steps required to secure legacy gifts? Please let us know in the comments section below.

The post Asking For A Legacy Gift: 10 Practical Steps To Get Started appeared first on Bloomerang.

What age group should you target?

Older adults tend to be more actively engaged in charitable giving and are more likely to make substantial donations.

According to data from various studies and research, the average age of nonprofit donors typically falls within the range of 50 to 75 years old. This age group often has more disposable income and is more inclined to include charitable giving in their financial plans. Additionally, they may have reached a point in their lives where they are reflecting on their legacy and the impact they want to leave behind.

As we age, we usually have more saved resources, and therefore have a greater ability to share those resources. The fact remains that most charitable giving still goes to the donor’s family, the school they attended, and their church, synagogue, or place of worship. If your nonprofit is not among those three places, then you have a marketing task to attend to.

Practical tips to encourage planned giving

Here are 13 practical tips on how to relate to and engage older donors and encourage planned giving.

1. Use larger print (14-point font at a minimum): Larger print helps aging eyes.
2. Build personal relationships: Cultivate personal connections with your aging donors. Reach out to them individually, listen to their stories, and express genuine appreciation for their support over the years. Regular communication can help maintain their engagement and trust in your organization.
3. Engage their family and loved ones: Recognize the importance of family in the lives of older donors. Engage their family members and loved ones in your organization’s activities, events, and communication. This inclusivity can foster a sense of shared philanthropy and strengthen the overall relationship with your nonprofit.
4. Educate and raise awareness: Many donors may not be familiar with planned giving options or how to include your nonprofit in their Will and estate plans. Providing educational materials, workshops, or seminars on estate planning and the benefits of making a planned gift, in person and via online video, is crucial. Help them understand the impact their legacy can have on your organization’s mission. (For more about planned giving see this piece on how to properly ensure planned giving stewardship.)
5. Share donor stories: Highlight pithy stories of individuals who have made planned gifts and the lasting impact it has had on your organization. These stories, preferably with a photo of the donors, can inspire and encourage other aging donors to consider making a planned gift. Consider creating testimonials or case studies that showcase the meaningful outcomes of planned giving by using short videos. If you don’t have any planned giving donors to highlight at this time, we suggest you examine your board of directors and hopefully there are a handful of them that will include your nonprofit in their Will.
6. Offer guidance and resources: Provide comprehensive information about various planned giving options, including wills / bequests. Including your nonprofit in the donor’s Will is the number one way most nonprofits receive a planned gift. There are other methods like charitable remainder trusts, charitable gift annuities, and more, but none as effective as being included in the donor’s Will. Make sure your donors have access to professional advisors who can help them navigate the complexities of estate planning. Offering a list (not a recommendation) of trusted attorneys or financial planners can be beneficial.
7. Tailor messaging and materials: Create marketing materials specifically focused on older donors. Craft messaging that resonates with their values, legacy, and desire to make a lasting impact. Use clear and simple language and include testimonials or examples relevant to their life stage. Older donors often appreciate storytelling and nostalgia. Share compelling stories that evoke emotions and connect them to the impact of their contributions. Use nostalgic elements that resonate with their life experiences to create feelings of familiarity and engagement.
8. Recognize and honor planned giving donors: Implement a recognition program specifically for planned giving donors. Acknowledge their generosity publicly, such as through a donor wall, a legacy society, or special events. Recognizing their contribution can inspire others and foster a sense of belonging and appreciation within your organization.
9. Facilitate the process: Make it easy for donors to include your nonprofit in their estate plans. Provide clear instructions. Most impactful is having sample bequest language that donors can share with their legal advisors. Donors report that they like that the most. Offer to assist in any documentation or administrative tasks related to the planned giving process.
10. Foster ongoing stewardship: Don’t forget about your planned giving donors once they’ve made their commitment. Continue to engage them through personalized updates, exclusive events, or volunteer opportunities. Regularly demonstrate the impact of their planned gift and express your gratitude for their support.
11. Timing is everything: Asking for a planned gift can feel sensitive or awkward, but with thoughtful preparation and communication, you can navigate the conversation smoothly. Choose the right time to bring up the subject. Timing is crucial when discussing a planned gift. Consider the donor’s life events, such as milestone birthdays, retirement, or personal reflections on their legacy. Look for natural opportunities to broach the topic, ensuring that the donor feels comfortable and receptive to the conversation. However, avoid a protracted process and make the request to be included in their estate plans sooner than later. It’s important that you actively listen. Approach the conversation as an opportunity to understand the donor’s philanthropic aspirations and desires. Give them space to express their thoughts and concerns openly. By actively listening, you can address any apprehensions or uncertainties they may have and tailor your approach accordingly. Most importantly, be sensitive and respectful. Recognize that estate planning is a deeply personal matter. Respect the donor’s autonomy and decision-making process. Ensure that your request for a planned gift is presented as an opportunity rather than an obligation. Emphasize the impact their gift will have on the causes they care about and the lasting legacy they can create.
12. Flexibility and recognition of different giving capacities: Recognize that older donors have varying financial capacities. Provide options for donors to give at levels comfortable for them, whether through major gifts, recurring donations, or smaller contributions. Every donor’s support is valuable, and their contributions should be recognized and appreciated accordingly.
13. Explore establishing a “Legacy Society” named after the largest planned giving donor: Such a naming opportunity should be thought through carefully. Some nonprofits offer the naming opportunity with a shelf life, say for the next decade, then it opens up again to be renamed. The list of your planned giving donors comprises the society’s members. Your dedicated legacy society for planned giving donors provides special benefits, such as exclusive events, regular updates, and opportunities to interact with your organization’s leadership. This recognition can inspire continued engagement and motivate them to promote planned giving within their networks.

Remember, cultivating planned giving relationships requires a long-term approach. It takes time to build trust, provide education, and help donors understand the benefits of leaving a legacy. By implementing these strategies, you can effectively address your aging donor population and inspire them to consider making planned gifts to support your nonprofit’s mission.

What’s your experience of what works with older donors? Please share in the comments section below. 

The post Your Donor Population Is Aging: 13 Tips To Engage Older Donors & Encourage Planned Giving appeared first on Bloomerang.

Your nonprofit should have a clear strategy for managing memorial donations and building relationships with donors and the family of the deceased. When you can build relationships with families, friends, and donors, you can strengthen your nonprofit’s community and foster more legacy giving in the future.

Managing memorial donations requires sensitivity and thoughtfulness. We’ll cover the special steps you should take in the following sections:

• What are memorial donations?
• 8 tips for managing tribute and memorial donations

Let’s start by taking a closer look at what memorial donations are and who they come from.

Wrapping up

Managing tribute and memorial donations strategically allows your organization to receive a revenue boost while forming stronger bonds with supporters. When you have clear processes for engaging with families and accepting memorial donations, audience members will feel more comfortable engaging in this giving method to honor their loved ones.

For more information about how to improve the memorial-giving process, explore these additional resources:

• Bloomerang Launches Tribute Notifications. Engaging with families is an essential step in the memorial donation process. Learn more about Bloomerang’s tribute notification functionality in this overview.
• Peer-to-Peer Fundraising: The Ultimate Guide for Success. Peer-to-peer fundraising can be an effective way to honor someone’s life. Learn about the best practices for facilitating peer-to-peer fundraising.
• 16 Top Donor Management Software Solutions (+ Buyer’s Guide). Keeping track of donor information ensures that you can properly communicate with families and memorial donors. Find out more about top donor management solutions with this guide.

The post 8 Tips for Managing Your Nonprofit’s Memorial Donations appeared first on Bloomerang.

As a nonprofit, it’s your responsibility to properly manage these donations, just as you manage any other type of donation. But memorial donations require special care and attention. Specifically, your organization must properly notify families when you’ve receive donations in honor of their loved ones.

Sending family notifications for memorial donations helps build positive relationships with families and strengthen your memorial giving program. In this guide, we’ll review best practices for sending these memorial notification letters. Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What is an acknowledgement letter for donations made in memory of someone?
• Why should you send memorial notification letters?
• How to write a family notification for memorial donations
• Memorial donation letter templates

Keeping families in the loop is essential to respectful memorial donation management. Let’s start by taking a closer look at what a memorial donation acknowledgement letter is.

Wrapping up

In-memory fundraisers are growing faster than any other type of peer-to-peer fundraising. That means your nonprofit must create a dedicated strategy for managing and acknowledging memorial donations.

With robust donor management software and a clear template, your organization can quickly generate thoughtful memorial donation notifications that keep families informed throughout the process.

For more information about donation management best practices, start with these resources:

• Bloomerang Launches Tribute Notifications. Learn more about Bloomerang’s tribute notifications feature that makes it easy to send memorial donation letters to families.
• 16 Top Donor Management Software Solutions (+ Buyer’s Guide). Donor management software can help automate the family notification process. Learn about top solutions with this buyer’s guide.
• Donor Appreciation: Creating a Strategy (And 22+ Ideas!). It’s also important to thank memorial donors for their gifts. This guide offers donor appreciation ideas that will show memorial donors your organization’s gratitude.

The post How to Write a Memorial Donation Family Notification Letter appeared first on Bloomerang.

 
During this presentation, we will reveal best practices for planned giving programs that any nonprofit can implement immediately. No need for dedicated staff or a long list of prospects to grow your program. The best practices will cover areas of marketing, donor solicitations, boards, and operations.
 
Attendees will learn practical steps to take to optimize their planned giving programs to reduce inefficiencies and increase the internal and external visibility of their program.
 

The post Planned Giving Best Practices appeared first on Bloomerang.

Or should they go the other way and promote legacy giving aggressively, seeking to get into donors’ wills before they succumb to COVID-19?

There’s no doubt about the fact that people fear death. Which makes it somewhat of a taboo subject for many. No doubt this contributes to the fact most media about COVID-19 deaths stick to numbers, not stories.

In fact, there’s a field of experimental psychology, “Terror Management Theory,” focusing on how people react when you remind them about death. There are hundreds of experiment results and many books and papers on the subject. Suffice it to say death is a problem. Seasoned planned giving experts Michael Rosen and Dr. Russell James break the results down in their recent whitepaper: Legacy Fundraising: The Best or Worst of Times?

What happens when you promote legacy giving, reminding people of their own mortality?

It turns out there are two principle ways folks respond when confronted with their own mortality. It’s essentially either ‘approach’ or ‘avoidance.’

1. Avoidance

If you send a legacy giving appeal to folks who don’t want to think about death (it’s not happening to me any time soon), they will simply ignore it.

GOOD NEWS: These folks won’t pay a lot of attention to your appeal. They’ll delete it or toss it. It’s highly unlikely they’ll stop giving to you during their lifetimes because you had the temerity to reach out to them about legacy giving. This is a LOW-RISK strategy.

2. Approach

If you send a legacy giving appeal to folks who are comfortable confronting their inevitable death (it happens to everyone), they may see this as an opportunity to assure their values live on. It’s a form of assuring their immortality.

GOOD NEWS: Just as these folks may leave a legacy for a friend or family member, assuring their memory lives on, they may just as willingly consider a legacy gift that memorializes other parts of their identity. Like the values your organization enacts, which values they share. This is a HIGH-REWARD strategy.

What happens differently when you promote legacy giving when folks people know are dying?

1. More Avoidance

In the fear of death experiments, social scientists found the more personal death reminders people received the more avoidance they exhibited. Many folks today know someone who has contracted or succumbed to the virus. It feels personal. And the confrontation with a death reminder is daily. So the fact that COVID news is layered on top of any legacy giving messaging you may send means more people may react with an avoidance response. Add to this the fact the times in which were living diminish the sense of emotional wellbeing people have; when folks feel a sense of diminished blessings they exhibit less generosity towards others.

GOOD NEWS: Even if people react this way, they’re still unlikely to stop giving to you otherwise simply because you broached the subject of legacy giving. You may get fewer folks opening your emails or letters, so you’ll want to adapt your strategies and expectations accordingly. This is still a LOW-RISK strategy.

2. Enhanced Approach

Because people have a more heightened sense of impending mortality than usual, many are doing whatever they can to increase their sense of autonomy and wellbeing. They can’t control the virus but can control how they live with the virus by taking preventive measures. Besides wearing masks, socially distancing, and/or even trying out untested treatments, people can connect with like-minded individuals and organizations to try to make a difference and enhance their sense of wellbeing.

GOOD NEWS: When you offer people the opportunity to take some control over their situation by making a meaningful philanthropic gift you also offer them the opportunity to feel better emotionally and psychologically. This may be perceived as especially significant during times like these when people feel loss of control in so many aspects of their lives. Layer on this the fact that people feel isolated and disconnected from others, and the opportunity to connect with your cause may strike a particularly resonant chord. The people who do take the approach response may actually approach with more receptivity because all these things are top of mind. This is still a HIGH-REWARD strategy.

When people feel a diminished sense of wellbeing they’ll seek to do something to feel better.

There are many factors affecting well-being. If a doctor can help you feel better, you’ll likely feel grateful to that doctor. In fact, this is a foundation of hospital ‘grateful patient’ fundraising. If a religious congregation can help you feel connected and supported, you’ll likely feel grateful to that congregation. In fact, this is a key tenet of faith-based fundraising. But you don’t need to be a healthcare or religious charity to help people feel better.

One key contributor to wellbeing is a sense of meaning. If you can help a donor develop a sense of purpose, agency, and significance, they’ll likely feel grateful to you. That gratitude may be expressed in the form of a legacy gift.

GOOD NEWS: By now you’re likely familiar with the MRI experiments showing when people even contemplate giving they receive a dopamine rush that lights up the pleasure center of their brains. Giving offers people a ‘warm glow’ feeling. This is something legacy giving can offer to folks.

It’s increasingly understood: giving is good for people.

All giving, whether to friends, family or even strangers is experienced as pleasurable. Non-charitable or charitable, legacy giving included. The same feel-good chemicals of oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine – known as the “Happy Trifecta” — and endorphins are released.

When folks are feeling powerless – as is the case today – giving can give them back their power. I, for one, have never thought more about the importance of safeguarding democracy and civil liberties. I am so grateful for the organizations fighting on this front, and for the people who left past legacy gifts to assure these institutions would live to fight another day. Would this be a bad time for one of these organizations to approach me for a legacy gift? Or a particularly good time?

“All it takes for me to move from defeat to victory is to give away some money. It’s the best deal I can think of.”

— Jeff Brooks, writing for Moceanic

Ask aggressively, but don’t hit folks over the head with a hammer.

Success in fundraising is all about how you frame what you’re doing. Legacy fundraising should always be respectful. In fact, all fundraising should.

Is your ask suffused with joy or clothed in apology?  When you understand giving is good for people, then ideas like “sorry, I need to twist your arm” or “it’s time to hit you up” naturally fall away. And these are the regretful approaches that seem particularly odious right now when there’s a surfeit of bald aggression on display.

Don’t begin your appeal with “Worried you may die soon?” Of course, that seems obvious. But if you dig for the reasons folks in your organization may feel uncomfortable asking for legacy gifts right now, you’ll find that’s how they view any such appeals. Their own discomfort with death – their personal ‘avoidance’ attitude — is seeping in. And, naturally, that’s not what you’re going to do. It’s okay to be direct, just not crude. Some folks might call that “aggressive,” but this doesn’t mean hostile or antagonistic. It’s simply being assertive. In a way that’s helpful for everyone.

Remember, you’re not begging, nor are you taking something away. You are giving something by offering a way for people to make a meaningful, ‘feel good’ transfer from their financial portfolio to their social portfolio.

People are making wills right now more than ever.

People visit their attorneys when “death becomes real.” Usually, it’s difficult to persuade folks, even those willing to consider a legacy gift, to visit their attorney during times they’re not thinking about death. Most folks consider writing or changing, a will during life cycle transitions, such as birth, marriage, divorce, widowhood, or illness diagnosis. Sometimes it happens as people are about to engage in something risky, like flying overseas, climbing a mountain, or parachute jumping. Right now we’re living in one of those transitional cycles.

No matter what you do or don’t do, a lot of folks are calling on their attorneys. Now is different. Google search results for “will planning” are higher than they’ve ever been. Essential workers are writing wills in droves, and attorneys are even volunteering to help them. Mostly these folks are thinking about protecting their family and loved ones. But… some of them love your cause too! And most good attorneys will ask clients if they wish to make a charitable bequest.

What happens when they get to the subject of legacy giving and your donor goes online searching for charitable beneficiaries? If you’re not actively promoting legacy giving, people may not know you’re set up to accept and manage bequests. So, at the very least, make sure you’ve got this information on your website. And don’t bury it! Go to your website and pretend you want to leave a bequest to your organization. Can you figure out how to do so? How many clicks does it take to find what you’re looking for? Do you offer useful information like suggested language to include your charity in their will? Or how to name you as a beneficiary of a retirement plan or insurance policy? If it’s a difficult process, now is a good time to make the experience more user-friendly.

It’s better to be active than passive. Your goal is always to be top of mind so folks think of you when charitable giving comes to mind. Donors need to know you make an impact. They need to know you’ve been around a while (10 years is enough), and will continue to serve. They need to know other folks like them do this sort of thing – which is why telling legacy donors’ stories are so powerful. More than once I’ve had a donor call me to say: “I saw Joe and Mary made a bequest/set up a memorial, and I want to do that too.” Similarly, I’ve received calls saying: “I had no idea the Loans and Grants Program was established by a 1948 bequest that grew to today’s size; I’d love to do something similar.” Here are some simple ways to promote legacy giving.

Here’s why you should promote legacy giving – at ALL times.

People are always dying. Sometimes more than other times, but no one is immune to death. Not every one of your supporters will choose to look it in the face at any point in time, but it’s not for you to decide on others’ behalf whether they may or may not wish to consider the ramifications of their own mortality. Any more than it should be your decision whether to ask your constituents for an outright gift or not.

When you make excuses on behalf of others you do no one any favors. It’s presumptuous at best. And, arguably, downright stingy. Dr. Adrian Sargeant and Dr. Elaine Jay found 88.7% of donors indicated they believe it is appropriate for nonprofits to ask for legacy gifts. In fact, donors encourage organizations they care about to communicate with them regularly and through different communication channels. They understand their attention spans are short, and what interests them today may not be what interested them yesterday or tomorrow.

Don’t be shy about asking for legacy gifts!

My Mom always said, “You can’t take it with you.” There are others who subscribe to that same philosophy, and who may be looking for places to leave a piece of their legacy. Would you deny them this opportunity?

Legacy giving seizes victory from the jaws of defeat. Whether folks close to you have passed away, or you’re confronted with death and dying on a global scale, or you’re simply afraid of dying yourself, legacy giving can:

• Create happiness
• Promote wellbeing
• Instill a sense of autonomy and power
• Offer purpose and meaning
• Provide tax benefits

I’ll leave you with another beautiful quote from Jeff Brooks, who writes about the numerous ways giving yields financial, emotional, psychological and physical health benefits, not to mention creating habits of virtue:

“Giving makes the whole world just a bit better…

Think for a moment about the impact charity has on society. Not just because of the important causes it funds, but because of the millions of healthier, happier, more involved donor-citizens it empowers. The whole world is better because of those donors and the way they live. If charitable giving weren’t happening, our world would be darker and bleaker, more broken and brutal.”

Help your donors to eat the stars.

The post Should You Aggressively Promote Legacy Giving When People Are Dying? appeared first on Bloomerang.

Our Ask An Expert series features real questions answered by Claire Axelrad, J.D., CFRE, our very own Fundraising Coach, also known as Charity Clairity.

Today’s question comes from a nonprofit leader who needs advice on identifying planned giving prospects through predictions and analytics.  

Dear Charity Clairity,

My board wants us to develop more planned gifts and I’m wondering about purchasing planned giving analytics so we can better identify likely prospects. What exactly is this, and does it work?

— Clueless

Dear Clueless,

What you’re asking about is called predictive modeling. There are companies like Donor Search or Target Analytics (I’m not recommending any particular product) who will run your database through a series of other databases that screen for wealth (income and assets), financial behavior, political giving, charitable giving and so forth while also determining general demographics and propensities of donors in your own database such as age (or life stage), gender, race, religion, income levels, education, areas of interest, timeliness and frequency of giving, volunteerism, other affiliations, etc. 

Your data is melded with general database data to come up with profiles that identify those with particular “planned giving likelihood” for you. Note you can screen for other factors, such as “major gift likelihood” as well. Each donor will receive a “likelihood” score. You can then run reports based on those scores, seeking to begin prospect identification, cultivation and solicitation plans with those at the top.

You can also purchase additional software, like Wealth Engine, Donor Search and others, to help you do further research on prospects you’ve identified as having high potential. This may help you better determine their capacity and predisposition to give so you can more appropriately tailor your approach and ask.

You do have to take these outcomes with a large shaker of salt. 

• Some of the information will be outdated. 
• Some of it will be incomplete. Wealthy people are pretty good at hiding assets if they want to. 
• Some of it will be misleading. Someone in San Francisco or New York City who owns a home may get a high score simply by virtue of home ownership. Yet this may be their only asset, which they intend to pass to their heirs, and is not necessarily an indicator or significant wealth or philanthropic inclination.

One of the best outcomes I’ve found from purchasing these services is making leadership confident you have real legacy giving potential. Some folks are more easily persuaded by data than anything else! Once you have buy-in that a legacy giving program makes sense for you, you can stop arguing about if and begin to robustly dig in to when, what, who, where and how.

I hope this helps to clairify things!

— Charity Clairity

Have a question for our Fundraising Coach?

Please submit your question here. Remember, there are no stupid questions! If you need an answer, it’s likely someone else does too. So help your colleagues by asking away. Please use a pseudonym, like “Clueless” did, if you prefer to be anonymous.

The post [ASK AN EXPERT] What are Predictive Analytics for Planned Giving? appeared first on Bloomerang.

If there was ever a time to start focusing on building a rainy day source of funding for your nonprofit, that time is now.

If you’re not sure why you should do this, ask yourself the following questions:

• How have you fared during the pandemic? Did you bring in less revenue than expected? Did more donors lapse than you anticipated? 
• How do your prospects for the foreseeable future look? 
• Do you scramble every year to bring in sufficient funding to assure you don’t have to shut down programs? 
• Do you have room to grow?
• Have you deferred capital campaigns or maintenance for too long?
• Do you have the ability to offer salaries and benefits that will attract the top talent? 
• Do you have funding to outsource tasks that would be better performed by dedicated experts working on contract?
• Do you have funds to treat your staff fairly, give them raises when deserved, and send them to trainings that will improve staff retention and boost your nonprofit’s morale and bottom line? 

If answering these questions made you realize that you do need to establish a rainy day fund, please keep reading.

And if it hasn’t, I recommend you keep reading anyway! You never know when you’ll find yourself dealing with an unexpected financial hardship. 

Building your rainy day fund

You need to build a source of rainy day funding. Now. Before the next crisis hits.

What makes up a rainy day fund

When I talk about a rainy day fund, I’m talking about two things:

1. Endowment – invested principal from which you can draw an income stream every year.
2. Legacy giving program – a program that will yield a steady stream of bequests, more or less annually, over time.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a plan to accrue passive income that would come streaming into your bank accounts in the future? 

When you build an endowment and a legacy giving program, you’re proactively taking steps to secure income you can count on—without putting the pressure on your team and donors to raise those funds year after year. 

This doesn’t mean you stop your annual giving program. You need that too. I’m talking about the importance of building a savings plan into your existing financial management strategy. 

Tip: I’ve heard from nonprofit leaders that nonprofits shouldn’t save money in this way; they believe that money on hand should be used to fund direct services today, not secure the nonprofit’s future interests. Don’t buy into that kind of thinking! Your current fundraising efforts will take care of today’s needs. Now it’s time to think about which ones will take care of future needs.

Convincing stakeholders that you need a rainy day fund 

In order to build your nonprofit’s rainy day fund, there are several things you need to do. 

Persuade stakeholders that building a rainy day fund is important. 

When it comes to building your endowment, first consider who you need to persuade to get on board with this idea. Is in your executive director? Your chief financial officer? Your program director? Your board chair? Your finance committee chair? 

Whoever it is, think about the problems that keep them up at night and how an endowment or legacy program may help them to sleep in peace.

Here are some examples of their potential concerns:

• Your executive director is concerned with stability.
• Your chief financial officer is concerned with financial strength.
• Your program director is concerned with the ability to deliver on your mission.
• Your board chair is concerned with governance responsibilities.
• Your finance chair is concerned with prudent financial management.

Talk to your leaders about their concerns and then explain how building an endowment or steady stream of legacy gifts could help resolve some of those worries. 

Tip: There’s strength in numbers, so once you persuade someone else that there’s merit in building an endowment or a strong legacy giving program, nurture them as allies and develop a mutual strategy to persuade others. 

For example, often the development committee chair will be a good ally to persuade the board, as their endorsement may carry more weight than yours as a staff member. Similarly, your chief financial officer may be able to persuade your executive director if you’re unable to do so.

Gather proof that building a rainy day fund is a sound idea.

There are several ways to go about this. Here are two I recommend: 

• Interview colleagues at nonprofits that you know your leaders admire. Find out what kind of endowment and legacy giving program they have in place and how much income this yields, on average, annually. Also find out how much staff time and budget they invest to achieve these outcomes. 
• Find legacy programs online that look active and dynamic. If possible, try to locate organizations that work in your field, are local, and/or are similar in size. Call the development or planned giving director to ask if they’ll meet with you for a research interview. If applicable, find out how they persuaded their leadership to start their rainy day fund.

In summary

When you commit to building a rainy day fund, you accomplish two very important things:

1. You and your team—and, by extension, your donors and the people you serve—can rest easy knowing that you’ve taken steps to ensure the work you’re doing today will continue in the future. 
2. You can start growing rather than just surviving, which will enable you to better serve the people your nonprofit is working to help.

Money enables mission—today and tomorrow.

Looking for more information? Here are some suggestions to inspire endowment and legacy giving to your nonprofit.

The post Your Nonprofit Needs To Establish A Rainy Day Fund. Here’s Why That Is And How You Can Convince Others To Get On Board. appeared first on Bloomerang.