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There are a handful of very important steps to take before you begin. They bring outside expertise to your program, establish clear policies to protect your station and your donors, ensure adequate recognition, and provide a plan so your program has a clear direction. All the necessary tools are contained in links both here and on the resource page.
Enlist Advisors
Recruit a group of professionals to bring specialized expertise to your program to serve as an advisory committee that can meet regularly to review your plans and progress and offer technical advice. This committee may include qualified board members — the chair of the finance committee is often included — but should not be dominated by the board as it provides an excellent opportunity for the station to expand its circle of influential friends. Planned giving consultant Kathryn W. Miree recommends involving attorneys, insurance professionals, certified financial planners, trust officers, stockbrokers, and real estate agents, tells where to find them, and how to involve them.
Establish Policies
Two important policies must be established at the outset — one governing what kinds of gifts are accepted and how, the second covering what will be done with gifts that are received. Both require consideration, approval, and understanding by the governing board, which provides an excellent opportunity to educate and involve the board in planned giving.
Gift Acceptance Policy: The first is a gift acceptance policy. Gift acceptance policies make clear to all participants what may be accepted and who may accept them. They also help avoid embarrassing situations by telling an organization when to reject a gift.
Planned Gift Policy: The second important policy details what happens to a planned gift once it is received. Most institutions allocate planned gift income to endowment which, of course, is an excellent way to strengthen the future of their organizations — and to show potential planned gift donors that their gifts will be wisely spent. Some institutions, especially those facing short-term financial stress, allocate unrestricted planned gift income to their operating budget. The difficulty with this policy is that forecasting planned gift income is difficult at best. Other institutions give their boards the opportunity to allocate larger unrestricted planned gifts — those over $200,000 for example — either to endowment and/or their operating budget.
Station Examples: OPB has three gift policies that operate together.
Focus on Bequests
Initially, focus on bequests, for that's where more than 80% of planned gifts come from. They are easy for the donor to arrange and for the station to promote. And, as Richard Ely of Strategic Fundraising Consultants writes, they have benefits for both the donor and the organization.
Establish Marketing Plan
The roadmap to planned giving success begins with a comprehensive marketing plan that outlines the measurable goals of the program, and then specifies the marketing efforts, timetables and budgets to reach those goals.
- Oregon Public Broadcasting shares a sample marketing plan (PDF, 89KB), along with the plan's one-year operating expenses.
Ready to start your program? Here are some Things that Work.
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Before you begin your marketing efforts, there are a few important first steps. Establish an advisory committee to provide technical expertise and counsel. Establish gift acceptance and endowment policies which your board understands and approves. Focus first on bequests, and establish your marketing plan and budget. With these steps in place, you'll be ready to go.
Almost 30% of charitable bequest donors got the idea from financial and legal advisors — another important reason to include such advisors as a key target of your planned gift marketing campaign!
More than 80% of planned gifts are charitable bequests from donors aged 65 years or better. But don't forget younger donors whose average age is 49 when they first decide to include a charity in their will. Reach those prospects with bequest information in your program guide and other general mailings.
Gift Planning is one of the few "sure things" any non-profit organization can count on these days to help ensure its future. While financial markets have been down, annual giving is in constant jeopardy of decreasing, and has, for many non-profits. But asking donors to include your organization in their will doesn't cost anything today. Their decision does not have to be dictated by stock market performance. And bequests are the most marketable type of planned gift! Given public broadcasting's audience demographics, which skew heavily toward the 55 and older market, planned giving is the perfect opportunity for us and for our donors to feel that they can really make a difference.
The broad support that KUED enjoys from thousands of donors each year is a natural springboard for planned gifts. We know from surveys that our donors value us, trust us, and see us as an important community institution. Those bonds, combined with the knowledge that KUED will always be here to serve the community, provide a strong foundation for planned gifts. I'm sure that planned giving will play a major part in helping to ensure KUED's future.
PDF Files: To read and print PDF documents, you
will need Adobe Acrobat Reader.
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Enlist Advisors
