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October 15, 2009

National Conference on Philanthropic Planning
Charities Step Up Marketing of Planned Gifts

More charities are actively promoting bequests and other planned gifts now than 10 years ago and they are making their pitch to even younger donors, according to research presented today at the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning’s annual meeting.

In 1999, Michael Kateman, executive director of development at Columbia College, in Columbia, Mo., asked the country’s top 40 fund-raising organizations, based on The Chronicle’s Philanthropy 400, about how they encourage people to make planned gifts. This year, Mr. Kateman’s colleague at the college, Brendon Steenbergen, did the same thing.

Comparing the groups, the researchers found that 91 percent were actively promoting planned gifts, up from 82 percent 10 years ago. And while organizations in both years said the bulk of their marketing efforts were designed to reach potential donors age 55 and older, 19 percent this year, compared with 9 percent in 1999, said they were also focusing on donors as young as 45.

In both surveys, organizations were most likely to say that education and awareness were the top benefits of promoting planned gifts. But groups in this year’s survey were less likely than the groups 10 years ago to cite landing big gifts as another top benefit of their marketing program. In 1999, 32 percent of the groups considered it a key advantage. This year, that percentage had dropped to 14.

Mr. Kateman attributed the change to a growing sophistication among fund raisers and charities about how to measure the success of efforts to solicit planned gifts.

“It’s not just an immediate dollar goal, but how many proposals were sent out, visits made, touches,” he said.

He said that fund raisers are also better identifying themselves as stewards of donors’ money, making sure their marketing materials demonstrate to donors how their gifts will be used and their impact. That shows, he said, in the increase in the share of organizations – from 3 to 14 percent — that listed “donor reassurance” as a top benefit of planned-giving marketing.

“They’re trying to avoid buyers’ remorse,” Mr. Kateman said, before noting the phenomenon in philanthropy parlance: “gifting remorse.”

— Debra E. Blum

Thursday October 15, 2009 | Permalink

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