First, until the gift planning profession dramatically improves its ability to articulate how gifts of accumulated wealth can be used to finance their organization for the long term, and rely less on describing all the various intricacies of a split-interest gift, this trend of mediocrity will continue.

Second, nonprofits need to improve their fiduciary ability to manage legacy-type gifts. I’d be interested if the survey attempted to explore the levels of trust – or lack thereof – that donors had in a charity’s ability to effectively manage a large estate gift. Or, if they fear that the organization will burn through that gift just like an irresponsible child might do.

Finally, I would attribute many of these survey findings to a general reluctance by organizations to truly invest in charitable gift planning. When the average tenure of a gift planning officer is about 18 months, and the average time it takes to cultivate and close a planned gift is about two years, statistically the average gift planner will never experience a completed gift from inception to execution. For a committed long term donor, consider how many staff people might have come and gone. Is that a message of stability? Couple that with the fear that as soon as they tell of a planned gift, that same organization intrudes on their privacy and starts listing names in annual reports, donor walls, etc. No wonder new or unknown donors seem to be more likely to make a planned gift than those more familiar with the organization!

I don’t mean to sound über-critical of charities, but this survey – while modestly flawed – should begin serving as a wake up call to the entire industry.

We also have good brand recognition and visibility among ‘non-donors’ so that even if they haven’t donated, they likely know who we are, so we may have a slightly higher rate of bequests from people who have never given a single gift.

Recognizing that resources often dictate early stage planned gift programs, we market to younger donors/prospects (40-60 ish) but focus our personal visits and gift officer resources on those older donors 65+ (or slightly younger, but interested in documenting a large planned gift, often with recognition opportunities) in order to balance the use of our limited dollars with marketing and outreach.