I often hear comments from presidents, board chairs or finance committees that reveal an underlying assumption that planned gifts represent a distraction or disfavored alternative to current donations. Organizational leaders sometimes worry that promoting planned gifts will reduce immediate financial contributions, but research demonstrates the opposite.
Research shows that donors who make a planned gift and choose to share that fact with the organization, on average, increase their annual giving afterward. The act of including the organization in their estate plan elevates the organization’s importance to the donor.
Planned gifts are typically the largest gifts that a donor will ever make. Avoiding discussions about this type of support in the belief that current giving would decline represents a mistaken trade-off. By leaving planned giving out of your campaign, you risk missing larger contributions that could address long-term sustainability into the future.
Loyal annual giving
Research has also consistently demonstrated that planned giving donors who included an organization in their estate plans had typically been contributing annually for many years. The size of their annual gift over these years is less of an indicator than the consistent repetition of their giving.
Many organizations focus first on indicators of wealth and then cultivate an outright major gift from these individuals. Planned giving is seen as more of a second option that follows some form of donor objection to the level of the outright gift that had been proposed.
Do not limit your planned giving discussions and marketing this way. Be pro-active about your most loyal, repetitive annual giving donors. They typically know your work and your impact better than anyone else and they have already demonstrated that they care.
Plant the seeds of planned giving earlier
Planned giving donors often create their first will in their 30s or 40s. Research has shown that donors who have ultimately documented a planned gift with an organization also included their first charitable bequest in their first will.
Many organizations focus their planned giving attention upon donors who have already reached retirement age. Primarily deploying frontline fundraisers with donors who are age 65 and over makes strategic sense. However, this does not mean that you should pretend that your younger donors have no interest in planned giving information. Be sure to plant the seeds of planned giving information with donors in their 40s and 50s. This will help you prepare them for future campaigns and for discussions about charitable bequests when the time is right.
Every organization’s planned giving journey looks different.
Whether you’re launching a new program or strengthening an existing one, JGA provides the strategy, guidance, and expertise to help you engage donors today while securing your mission for tomorrow. Get in touch to learn how we can help.
