Who are Your Best Planned Giving Prospects?

Almost everyone has the capacity to make a planned gift. Consider just these four facts:

• Among those ages 65 and older, 78 percent own their home (US Census)
• Most Americans own stock in one form or another (Gallup)
• Inflation-adjusted median household net worth grew 16 percent from 2013-16 (US Federal Reserve)
• 69 percent of Americans expect to leave an inheritance (Stelter)

The fact that most Americans have the ability to make a planned gift presents both a great opportunity and a profound challenge for fundraising professionals. With limited staff and budget resources, it is essential to focus legacy giving marketing where it will do the most good. So, who are the best planned giving prospects?

You can visualize the answer to that question as an equation:

Ability + Propensity + Social Capital = GIFT

Your best planned giving prospects will have the means with which to make a planned gift, ideally a sizeable one. However, just because they have the ability does not mean they will take the action you desire. A number of factors influence a prospect’s propensity for giving. Some of those factors might be related to the organization seeking a gift while other factors might have nothing to do with the organization. Finally, we need to consider a prospect’s level of social capital, their degree of engagement with the community and the organization. Someone who scores high in each category is more likely to make a planned gift than someone who scores low.

A simpler way to identify strong planned giving prospects is to recognize that “the most dominant factor in predicting charitable estate planning was not wealth, income, education, or even current giving or volunteering. By far, the dominant predictor of charitable estate planning was the absence of children,” according to philanthropy researcher Russell James, JD, PhD, CFP^®. In other words, people who do not have children are far more likely to make a charitable planned gift than those who have children.

However, while the absence of children tells us who is generally more likely to make a planned gift, it does not tell us whether your organization will be the recipient of such a gift. The leading factor that will determine whether someone will make a planned gift to your organization is their level of loyalty, according to legacy researcher Claire Routely, PhD.

As you attempt to determine a prospect’s level of loyalty to your organization, you’ll want to consider a number of factors including:

If You Don’t Care About Them, Why Will They Care About You?

A reader of Michael Rosen Says… recently contacted me with her/his own unfortunate experience with a nonprofit organization. S/he provided me with a copy of an email exchange s/he had with a theater company. I’m going to share this person’s story with you because it contains a worthwhile lesson about the importance of reciprocity.

Before I get to the story, however, I want you to know that I am editing the emails for brevity and any identifying information. I’m protecting the name of the theater company, the name of the Managing Director of the theater company, and the reader who contacted me because neither party knew, at the time, their one-on-one communications would find their way into the press.

From time to time, I write about the blunders that some nonprofit organizations make. I’ve done this, not to shame them, but so others can learn from someone else’s mistakes. It is much less painful if we learn from someone else’s missteps rather than our own.

The story begins when my reader — let’s call her/him “Sam” — received an email from a theater company. Sam, who had purchased two season subscriptions, immediately opened the email. The message promoted an interesting lecture by a well-regarded nonprofit leader in the community. The lecture dealt with leadership and tied-in with the company’s current play.

The event appealed to Sam. Just before clicking through to the organization’s website to accept the invitation and purchase tickets, Sam noticed the date of the lecture: Monday, March 25. Unfortunately, this meant that Sam would not be able to attend because that date was the first night of Passover, an important Jewish holiday.

Annoyed that the theater company would schedule a special one-time program on Passover, Sam wrote to the theater company:

Disappointing scheduling of an otherwise appealing, academic lecture.

So, add this to your discussion: Does a good (nonprofit) leader ‘dis’ a large portion of the region’s top arts patrons through thoughtless event scheduling?

We’ll be celebrating first Seder.

We really would have enjoyed hearing the address on this topic. The speaker is a dynamo.

Sam”

The theater’s Managing Director responded the next business day. This was very good. The Managing Director did the smart thing by responding soon after receiving the complaint:

Dear Sam,

Thanks very much for writing. I’m very sorry for the scheduling inconvenience. We truly do our best, but we present special events all season long and it is not possible to avoid all holidays on the calendar. For example, this event takes place on the first night of Passover, we have a performance of XXXXXXX on Easter, etc.

If you’re interested in history, I hope you’ll consider joining us for the talk on Monday, April 1 with ZZZZZZZZ. He’s truly fantastic.

All best,

Fran”

The response was good in three ways:

1. A high-level person sent an immediate, personal response.

2. The message contained an apology.

3. The author suggested another program that the individual might enjoy.

Unfortunately, the goodwill these positive points might have earned was largely negated by the defensive and dismissive tone of the email. Sam responded: