Are You Wasting Time by Hunting Unicorns?

Go to any fundraising conference, and you’ll find unicorn hunters. You might even be one. You can see the unicorn hunters in seminar sessions about Charitable Remainder Annuity Trusts (CRATs), Charitable Lead Trusts (CLTs), and Charitable Remainder Uni-Trusts (CRUTs).

Unicorn hunters believe that Trusts are the cornerstone to a healthy planned giving program. Unicorn hunters scour the wealthiest portion of their donor files to find Trust prospects and then focus an enormous amount of time and energy trying to close big Trust gifts.

Some would-be unicorn hunters are overwhelmed by the hunt. They fear they have no prospects and/or they fear they have insufficient knowledge to pursue such gifts. So, they don’t implement any kind of planned giving effort.

Well, here’s your reality check, courtesy of Giving USA 2015: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2014.

As the chart below reveals, the number of Trusts is tiny compared to the number of Public Charities which stood at 963,234 in 2012 (not including religious congregations and organizations with less than $5,000 in revenue), according to the Urban Institute’s The Nonprofit Sector in Brief 2014.

Even if every single charity that received a Trust gift only received one, that would mean that less than 12 percent of charities would have received a Trust gift in 2012. In other words, the likelihood that a fundraiser will close a Trust gift is very small in any given year. Moreover, the odds have been getting smaller as the number of charities has grown while the number of Trusts has declined.

Of course, that’s not quite how it works in the real world. In the real world, large organizations with large donor files containing plenty of wealthy supporters are far more likely to close Trust gifts than smaller organizations with smaller donor lists. If you don’t work at a large, established organization, the chances that you’ll close a Trust gift this year are miniscule.

 

While the dollars associated with Trust gifts are certainly significant, the actual number of such gifts is small. By contrast, far more people name a charity in their will, make beneficiary designations, give appreciated securities or personal property, or donate from their IRAs.

Keeping your eyes open for Trust-gift opportunities can be beneficial. However, you’re much more likely to close other types of planned gifts. This means:

Two Major Factors that Demotivate Donors

I recently spent a fair bit of time teaching graduate students, in my “Advanced Fund Development” class at Drexel University, about what factors motivate major and planned gift donors. Much research has been done and much has certainly been written on the subject. I even felt strongly enough about the topic to have devoted a full chapter to it in my book, Donor-Centered Planned Gift Marketing.

While it is critically important to understand what motivates people to donate money and, more specifically, to make major and planned gifts, it is also necessary to recognize how individuals can become demotivated.

While an organization’s being polarizing (see my previous post about The Salvation Army), self-centered, or running afoul of the factors that motivate people will certainly demotivate prospective donors, there are two particular demotivating factors that are especially noteworthy. The George Washington University discovered the two factors in a focus group study it commissioned involving university alumni.

Taking care of family is a primal need.

One of the biggest deterrents to making bequest commitments is the universally held belief:

Family comes first.

That’s to say, family comes before any nonprofit organization. The priority for most individuals is to take care of their loved ones. This often means keeping wealth within the family. To respond to this concern, organizations need to show prospects how a meaningful gift can be made, at a minimum, without asking loved ones to suffer. When possible, prospects should be shown how a planned gift can actually benefit loved ones. Consider this example from the Smithsonian Institution that was shared with me by John B. Kendrick:

When I first arrived at the Smithsonian Institution as Director of Planned Giving, a colleague recommended that I contact Cliff, a person who had responded to a [Charitable Gift Annuity] advertisement in Smithsonian magazine a few months before. Cliff wanted to make sure the Smithsonian was strong financially. At age 96, he was still incredibly alert mentally, and he wanted to provide a lifetime income for his wife, who was nearly 20 years younger.

He appreciated the Smithsonian, but frankly was more concerned about the safety of her guaranteed payments than supporting a particular charitable purpose. A consultant to the Smithsonian had traded more than 20 e-mails with Cliff, who originally inquired about a $10,000 CGA.

As he became convinced of the Smithsonian’s financial strength, he quickly increased his inquiry to a CGA for $1 million. But no one had ever called him—they had simply been trading e-mails! I telephoned Cliff, and the discussion quickly progressed; within another two months he sent in stock certificates to establish a $500,000 CGA for his wife. Over the next year, he created two additional $500,000 CGAs for his wife—for a total of $1.5 million.

But that’s not the end of the story.

He had a son who was not strong with money management. Cliff still actively managed his own finances and made periodic distributions to his son. I suggested setting up a CGA or Charitable Remainder Trust now for the son, but Cliff insisted that he wanted to manage his money outright for as long as possible. We agreed, however, that a testamentary CGA for his son would meet his desires. I provided sample language, and Cliff’s lawyer modified his estate plan to include a $2 million testamentary CGA.

From a $10,000 inquiry, we received $3.5 million in gifts because we took the time to show Cliff how we could help him take care of his family.”

The other major demotivator discovered by The George Washington University is: