What Portfolio Does Planned Giving Belong In?

Does Legacy Giving belong in the Major Giving Portfolio?

You might be thinking “obviously it is!” Or maybe “no way!” Some of you might not be sure - and that’s okay.

Be honest with yourself and note your answer.

Now let’s dive in.

Today, I’m going to show you a mindset shift that will put you miles ahead of many other fundraisers when it comes to Legacy Giving (i.e. gifts-in-wills fundraising).

First, let’s zoom out and think about how we approach our whole fundraising program.

If we were to hire someone with the title of “Annual Giving & Grants Manager” or “Major Giving & Annual Giving Officer” we would recognize that those are two separate jobs rolled up in one.

An expert might say to avoid putting that much work on a single fundraiser - but if your budget leaves you no choice, you would work with what you have. This means accepting that you’ll have to limit the amount of work done in either portfolio (maybe 25 hours per week on annual giving and 15 hours on grants.) You’d likely plan to hire someone who has one skillset (i.e. annual giving), then invest in training for the other (i.e. grant writing).

Ideally, you would grow your fundraising revenue so you can eventually justify hiring a fundraiser for each role.

Yet this mentality is missed when we hire a “Major & Planned Giving Manager” and call our work done.

One of the largest fundraising myths is that planned giving belongs in the major giving portfolio. That it’s an add-on for these already very busy fundraisers.

Major Gift fundraisers should absolutely incorporate planned giving in their work. Their donors’ wealth is held in assets, so that’s how they should ask for large gifts. And when a major donor is heavily invested in your charity and has been loyal for years, a conversation about gifts-in-Wills is a natural next step.

But this is far from establishing a Planned Giving program.

A Planned Giving program requires thought-out strategy, powerful messaging and marketing, ongoing prospecting, and back-end systems to run well.

Most major gifts fundraisers don’t have the expertise nor capacity for this. For example, many experts recommend including more no more than 80-100 donors in an officer’s portfolio. This requires ruthless prioritization. If a donor doesn’t show signs of giving in the next year or two? ​Put them on the “back burner”.​

But in legacy giving, once someone expresses an interest in leaving a gift-in-Will - or tells you about a gift - they’re in your portfolio for life (or until they opt out). Relationship building is important, but it has to be done in a different way.

It’s more personal than annual giving, but less 1:1 than major giving.

A Major Gifts Officer who is managing a full portfolio likely doesn’t have the time to nurture a relationship with a retired teacher who gives $250 every year, but can leave $250,000 through her estate. (Heck! That officer probably doesn't even have time to identify her as a legacy prospect from a database of thousands of donors) If you’re not receiving the bequest for another 20 years, it’s not “front burner” major gifts work. (​Not to mention it’s easier for a major gift officer to have legacy conversations when there’s an established program​).

And so that fundraiser maintains the title of “Major & Planned Giving Manager” as more of an aspiration than anything else.

And Planned Giving continues to not get done.

Today’s article is inspired by a comment I received from a fundraiser who attended my AFP session last week about ​the new Estate Giving Donor Cycle.​

She said it transformed the way she thought about legacy giving. She always thought it belonged as an add-on to major gifts, but she realized legacy giving is its own form of fundraising. It requires expertise and investment - the same as major giving, annual giving, grants, or any of the other jobs we do to raise money for worthwhile causes.

So now that you know this, you’re ahead of most nonprofits. Want the next steps? Here’s what you need to get Planned Giving done:

• If you’re hiring for a role that includes Planned Giving (or adding it to an existing staff’s role), give them at least 15 hours a week for it (especially in the first year). That means a smaller portfolio for their other work (for example, maybe they only manage 40 major donors instead of 80-100).

• If your staff doesn't have Planned Giving expertise, invest in quality Planned Giving professional development.

• If you want to get your pledges for $50,000 estate gifts faster (and without the trial-and-error of doing it yourself), consider ​done-for-you Planned Giving support

Psst… want more fundraising articles like this? Sign up below and get them in your inbox weekly!

© Copyright Full Potential Fundraising Inc. All rights reserved.