The Easy Fix for More $50k Estate Gifts

I recently audited some Planned Giving websites, a mix of big and small. Surprisingly, the big ones with hundreds of millions in annual revenue didn’t score much higher than the smaller shops. 

One large Canadian charity has a multi-person Planned Giving team, yet their digital presence was sorely lacking.

• They had an excellent PDF brochure with amazing Planned Giving “why” messages (i.e. the case), but none of that content was on their website (and the brochure was hidden behind a contact form!)
  
  

• When I filled out that contact form, there were no email automations to foster my relationship with the cause or follow up about my interest. Instead, many days later, a fundraiser emailed me 1:1 with a seemingly copy-and-paste email message.
  
  It’s been 2 months and I haven’t received any follow ups.
  
  

That’s a HUGE opportunity for inspiring donors and relationship-building flushed down the drain.

Because their Planned Giving “WHY” messages were in a PDF hidden behind a contact form, if I wasn’t willing to share my email I would have missed their most inspiring messages about legacy giving.

And when I put my contact information in the form it seems to have gone into a void. 

I didn’t receive the PDF brochure in an email, so it’s buried somewhere in my downloads folder - and yes, I checked my junk email.

The 1:1 follow up email was generic, delayed, and easily missed.

This is an example of what I called Planned Giving Piecemeal-itis.

And even the largest charities fall victim to it.

Their PDF brochure was amazing. It was likely created by a direct marketing agency and meant to be printed.

But while that direct marketing agency is good at what they do and fulfilled their deliverables, the overall strategy was neglected.

The website seems to be cobbled together as an afterthought (without referring to the amazing work their agency had done.)

There appears to be no supporter journeys for potential legacy donors found through their online forms. They didn’t even have a single automation to confirm the form was filled!

If this were a small scrappy fundraising team, I would be more sympathetic. However, this charity has hundreds of millions of dollars and best-in-class annual giving. They even had a small pop-up on their website appear whenever someone donated - an innovative technology that I haven’t seen elsewhere.

So if this charity has great digital fundraising for their annual program and multiple full-time Planned Giving fundraisers, why is this happening?

It’s because fundraising (and the world) has drastically changed over the past 15 years, and Planned Giving hasn’t caught up. 

The internet and smart phones are pervasive - even for “old people”. 

We’re spending more and more of our lives in front of screens.

Annual giving must respond to this. If it doesn’t, you won’t meet your revenue goal this year. So a large charity will adapt and invest in comprehensive annual giving strategies. They will integrate traditional channels like mail with digital and invest in best-in-class tech.

But Planned Giving?

Even though it has the highest ROI of any fundraising investment, there’s a lag between your efforts and the dollars-in-the-door. 

Which means fundraising leaders can become complacent - especially if their program was successful in the past.

It’s a lot easier to do things as they’ve always been done than to create a new strategy. 

Until relatively recently, these “piecemeal” tactics were actually effective at creating a legacy program - a brochure here, a letter there. Afterall, your only communication channels were mail, phone, and sometimes meeting for tea. Sure, some folks used email, but not your legacy prospects aged 65+. 

But the way we interact with the world - and our charities - has drastically changed.

It’s more complex.

Which means our Planned Giving strategies need to be more complex than they were 15 years ago.

They need to reflect the journeys our donors go on - from digital to mail to email to your events, and yes, even social channels.

And there’s a huge opportunity here for smaller charities who don’t have hundreds of millions in annual revenue at their disposal.

I predict that these larger charities who have become complacent in their legacy giving programs will see their estate revenue stagnant or shrink in the future.

But the number of people who leave gifts in Wills won’t decline (in fact, studies show the number is increasing). 

So where will these gifts go?

To the charities who build life-long legacy giving relationships with their donors. Who meet them where they are and create multi-channel journeys that speak to their identity and the change they want to see in the world.

The great thing about digital is it’s a lot cheaper to implement than mail - this levels the playing field.

For too long, the “average” charity has had their loyal annual donors leave their gifts in Wills to other charities - usually the largest household name ones who had more resources to invest in legacy giving.

Now, these donors’ gifts-in-Wills might be missed by those large organizations. That means you can funnel those $50,000+ estate gifts to your cause - if you’re creating a better journey. A stronger relationship.

It starts by doing what the multi-hundred-million charity is not - creating a strategic Planned Giving program that incorporates digital donor journeys.

And you don’t need expensive software nor a complex digital strategy to do this. Even a basic email automation and including an inspiring "WHY" message on your website will put you miles ahead of that large charity I audited. Making just a few improvements to your digital Planned Giving is an easy way to get a larger “chunk” of the gifts-in-wills pie.

THIS is the Planned Giving revolution. It’s how you’ll get your cut of the great wealth transfer, and increase your annual revenue by 10-30%!

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