Planned Giving Insights and Information

How to Improve Your Marketing Through Photos

Once in a while an article comes along that is so relevant to our work that it’s a wonder why more organizations aren’t already doing what the article prescribes.

What Are Your Keystone Habits?

Most of us have more work than we have time for. Prospecting, donor calls and donor visits, stewardship, donor reports and updating activity records, marketing, department meetings, gift/estate administration, leadership and board reporting, all compete for our attention. Success does not rely on getting it all done, however, it does relies on getting the right things done. That’s where planned giving marketing can have its challenges. Marketing programs often suffer in the execution, but it’s not so much a failure to execute – it’s a failure to execute the right things. And this applies to organizations with a dedicated planned giving staff, as well as organizations in which planned giving is part of the overall fundraising function.

Thank You, Thank You!

It was the eve of 2016 and because the office was quiet with so many clients away on holiday, it was a good time to catch up on some reading. I found a real gem in the December 22 publication of the Chronicle of Philanthropy where they compiled a toolkit of tips that had been collected throughout the year on the topic of “how to thank (and retain) a donor.” For the benefit of our readers who might have missed it, these tips are worth repeating. More importantly, you should keep them in your files and make them part of your 2016 stewardship plans.

Year-End Giving

As a general rule of thumb, when it comes to planned giving marketing at year-end, I advise our clients to stop distributing planned giving targeted mailings by October. Most organizations are in full throttle with their end-of-year and annual fund solicitations intended for outright giving. Trying to compete against annual fund solicitations with planned giving mailings doesn’t make good business sense, and doesn’t consider how the recipient is inundated with year-end solicitations in general.