Talk About Legacy Giving!

September 6, 2007

Here's a report fresh from New Zealand.

We all know that when you lift the lace curtain of legacy fundraising, you're looking at, well … dying.

But here's a legacy gift that will never die. Or is it always dying? We're not sure.

Funeral Director Gregory Brownless has gifted his funeral business, hereafter to be named Legacy Funerals, to his local community. All profits from the funeral business will be distributed to the community annually through a local foundation. Mr. Brownless, who was moved to make this gift by his experience volunteering in Thailand after the Boxing Day tsunami, will take no further salary or benefit from the business.

Talk about making legacy giving easy! To give back to your community in Tauranga NZ, all you need to do is die and get buried (or, we presume, cremated). Of course a gift in your will would be nice touch too.

As the Kiwis say, good onya Mr. Brownless.

Actually this gives us an opportunity to shamelessly plug once again a lively white paper on legacy giving that Roger and his colleagues have prepared, called The Legacy Group Contrarian Approach.

We have too few planned giving pros reading The Agitator, so the rest of you … pass this important paper along to the person carrying that responsibility in your nonprofit!

Tom

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Planned Giving’s Urban Legend

August 17, 2007

Couldn't help but pay extra attention to the “Are Charities Losing Out on the Wealth Transfer” post in the always interesting blog review in Give & Take, Peter Panepento's column in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Robert Frank, author of Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich, predicts in a recent interview on NPR that the current generation of wealthy Americans will pass along 75 percent of their wealth to their children.

Query: Does this mean that the hoped for tsunami of wealth that is/was to fill non-profit treasuries as the World War II and early Boomer generations die off simply an urban legend?

Absolutely not. Mr. Frank is not talking about average Americans, he's talking about Americans with individual or family wealth ranging mostly from $10 million to $100 million. Yet the vast majority of planned gifts from this intergenerational transfer come from middle class, not wealthy folk. And 95% of it comes in the form of simple bequests by will, not through complicated trusts and other family wealth and tax management devices.

But, the Chronicle's blog and the NPR interview triggered a series of thoughts and questions that all fundraisers should be asking — particularly those of us who work with organizations that have large donor bases built by direct response.

For example…

  • Since we're more than half way through the 'window' predicted for this intergenerational trasfer (1987-2015) why don't more fundraisers have a sense of urgency about planned giving, or what I prefer to call 'legacy' marketing.

After all, large numbers of the most loyal American donors fall into the 75 year+ age group. A simple look at the mortality tables should give you the shivers. 38% of the women on your file in this age group– and 55% of the men — will be dead in 10 years.

  • In every donor file we've ever studied, between 20% and 35% of your direct respoonse donors are prime legacy prospects.

But how many organizations are actively seeking legacy support from this group? Apparently not enough. In studies we've done, 25% of these donors say they haven't been asked to make a bequest.

This is particularly true for those groups built and sustained largely by direct response. Why spend more and more and get less and less on new donor acquistion when you're sitting on an aging platinum mine?

To quickly calculate what you may be leaving on the table go to the Legacy Calculator on the Craver, Mathews, Smith & Company website, answer a few questions and you'll have your answer.

In my opinion, most planned giving programs place too much emphasis on the ins and outs of taxation and complex structures for giving. At the same time they

Continue reading “Planned Giving's Urban Legend”

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Nothing Like Passion In Politics

June 18, 2007

Last week we reported on the impact of video watched online … it gets people to do things!

The data on online video use we cited was a year-old, ancient in the web timescale, so here's some new data from ComScore, from March 2007:

  • 71% of US internet users, or 126 million folks, streamed 7 BILLION videos that month (3 of 10 streamed from YouTube);
  • The average streamer watched 55 videos per month, for a total of 145 minutes.

A huge and engaged audience.

What's this got to do with passion in politics?

Politicians and campaigns seem to draw the most impassioned use of online video. Professionals looking to make a name, clandestine agents of campaigns, concerned rank amateurs … all are aggressively pursuing the online video audience. Micah Sifry has an excellent post on this phenom — and the important issues it raises — over at TechPresident, complete with convenient clickable samples.

Once again, we urge nonprofit marketers to monitor online communications and fundraising developments in the political campaign space, where competition is fierce. There's much to learn, even though not everything will apply directly … some of it might be more valuable in terms of what to avoid … some of it might not suit your taste.

Indeed, one of the hottest (in more ways than one) videos making the online circuit these days features a Monica Lewinsky wannabe, Obamagirl. Not exactly a stellar example of the internet and “social networks” lifting the level of political discourse in America … though some of the lyrics are clever if you focus on them.

What's your verdict? Is there any redeeming social value from Obamagirl?

Roger & Tom

P.S. Perhaps more helpful examples of nonprofits and consultants using online video are here at the League of Conservation Voters (a contest for global warming videos), or here from Planned Legacy (promoting an “electronic legacy memorial” product).

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The Not-So-Hidden Bonanza

May 22, 2007

Last week the Journal of Philanthropy carried the summary of a study by Campbell & Company on bequest giving.

And once again I found myself asking why aren’t fundraisers — particularly those good in direct response — falling all over themselves to get in on what the Journal of Planned Giving estimates to be a $41 trillion bonanza.

Maybe it’s because “planned giving” has historically been viewed as some arcane science best left to Planned Giving Officers trained in legal and tax matters. After all, what could a lowly database or direct response fundraiser possibly know about this?

Well, inferiority complexes aside, the fact is that any organization with a base of donors, some giving history, and some gumption can launch a successful legacy/bequest marketing program. Best of all, using proven direct response techniques, these programs pay off quickly and handsomely.

Tomorrow (Wednesday the 23rd) from noon to 2 p.m. The Legacy Giving Group, will hold a free seminar in the conference room of the Human Rights Campaign at 1640 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W. in Washington, D.C.

I’m part of this Group and I want to share some of my missionary zeal over legacy and bequest marketing with readers of The Agitator. So, if on this short notice you have two hours, you’re certainly welcome to attend. Just drop an email to rogercraver@gmail.com and let me know you're coming.

My point is to not flog yet another seminar on planned giving, but to alert you to the fact that for too long a sense of mystery and complexity have served to obfuscate an approach to fundraising that should be on the top of every organization’s fundraising agenda.

Just consider these facts from the Campbell & Company study:

  • Most people who name nonprofits in their wills tend to have been steady donors during their lifetimes. And, as a rule, they contributed an average of $2000 more annually than other non-legacy donors.
  • 33% of the donors surveyed have not yet made a planned gift, but say they would consider it.
  • Only a small percentage of “retirees” have made bequests, but a whopping 25% say they are willing to consider doing so.

At a time when the average Return on Investment for direct mail campaigns is around $3:1, shouldn't you invest some time in understanding how your direct marketing skills can be used in marketing bequests, where the ROI is $20:1 and where the payoff comes far more quickly than most fundraisers imagine?

[For a view that is quite contrarian to that of most planned giving fundraisers, visit my earlier post, Secret Riches and Why You're Missing Them, and download The Legacy Giving Group’s white paper there.]

.

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