Marketing Your Planned Giving Program

This week I shared some of my firsthand experience on planned giving marketing with the Major Gifts Report. I started by sharing a story about a client I had that eliminated their planned giving marketing budget – not because the program wasn’t successful – but because it was.  Three years later, the program revenue dropped by a third.  Lesson learned? Your planned giving program requires ongoing marketing support.

Here are some more tips I discussed in the article:

1. Start by selling your planned giving program to your staff, leadership, and board. Many organizations get over half their planned giving leads internally.
2. The best planned giving prospects are people you know well and have demonstrated passion and loyalty for your organization. Don’t overlook your volunteers, advisory groups, or staff – both current and retired.
3. When you begin trying to attract planned giving donors outside of your internal sphere, piggyback as much as possible on promotional materials already in use – newsletters, packets you take on solicitation calls, at events, and of course, on your website.
4. Cover different types of giving like trusts and annuities, but focus at least half of your materials on bequests.
5. When you conduct a direct mail project, keep in mind you’re not only trying to generate a response, you’re also trying to educate your donor base on planned giving. (For this reason, it’s hard to gauge whether a planned direct mail is a success.)
6. Direct mail is a great touch point and a great reason to create another one.  Select a least a portion of your direct mail recipients (even if it’s randomly generated) and follow-up with a phone call.  Calls will increase your direct mail campaign’s effectiveness.
7. Planned giving material has a tendency to get overly technical. Try to keep your message simple.

What marketing tips would you share?