Our services are best suited for charities who have at least a basic individual giving program. Typically they will have 1 to 10 fundraisers on staff (or more), but no dedicated full-time Planned Giving fundraiser. The sectors we serve are environment, animals, social services, education, health, and arts.

Nope! It’s all asset-based giving (i.e. gifts that aren’t made from cash in a donor’s bank account). As a mid-sized charity, gifts-in-wills are the most common - and lucrative - type of Planned Gift, so the majority of our work will focus on them. But we also include common Planned Giving vehicles such as DAFs (Donor Advised Funds), registered accounts, securities, and life insurance in our work.

Not at all! In fact, they will give more. Studies by Dr. Russel James show that once a donor leaves a gift in their Will, they increase their annual gifts by an average of 77%. This is because including your charity in their estate plans strengthens their relationship with your cause - and encourages them to think about giving assets and not just cash.

There are a few benefits to done-for-you Planned Giving support compared to simply adding it to your fundraising team'‘s to-do list:

One - your Planned Giving program will be created and implemented by a Planned Giving expert. This ensures your work will be completed to the highest standard and you’ll only spend time on the most effective tactics. Often, when Planned Giving is completed by a generalist, opportunities may be missed, time could be wasted on ineffective strategies, and errors in your back-end processes and systems leave gaping holes that won’t be realized until it’s too late.

Two - Even if you have an experienced and enthusiastic fundraiser on-staff, if they have other responsibilities Planned Giving will likely be neglected. To properly run a Planned Giving program on their own, a fundraiser should have at least a full day dedicated to it, but to be successful it could easily take up half the week - especially in the early stages of building a program and learning Planned Giving skills. With our done-for-you support, in-house fundraisers only need to dedicate a few hours per week to Planned Giving (to talk with donors and check in with us) - everything else is taken care of.

Done-for-you support ensures you have a dedicated expert pushing your program forward - even if your Development Director is putting out fires.

Marketing agencies offer services solely focused on your legacy messaging and acquisition. This means they will create things like brochures and run “campaigns” such as surveys to get “hand raisers”.

These marketing services are great for charities that already have a solid Planned Giving program and only need better messaging or a targeted campaign to improve it.

However, many mid-sized charities don’t have their Planned Giving program set up well enough to take full advantage of these marketing services. They need a strategy, back-end systems, the skills to talk with donors about Planned Gifts, and more.

(If you’ve invested in a legacy giving marketing agency, but still feel like your Planned Giving is on shaky ground, this might be why. Using a marketing agency too soon can lead to a piecemeal “program” that’s only a mix of inconsistent tactics).

Done-for-you support will create a comprehensive Planned Giving program for you - from the back-end systems, to estate admin, SOPs and automation, legacy marketing, acquisition campaigns and more.

Here’s a novel approach - we don’t track hours! That’s right - our work is based on deliverables clearly defined at the beginning of our contract. This provides predictability for your budget and peace-of-mind knowing quality work will be done efficiently. Our clients are delighted at the level of support they receive!

Short answer: it depends. 

For 2-6 month contracts: Typically, if we meet with your donors, it will only be to collect stories for Planned Giving content - and we’ll request a staff member to join us for those calls. 

For 12+ month contracts: We’re all about adding to your capacity and doing your Planned Giving heavy lifting! Depending on the level of support you require, we can follow up and have calls with your donors - particularly when they are at the “interested” stage. However, this is not required.  

Like any good development professional, we ensure the donor builds the relationship with the charity, and not us as individual fundraisers.

There’s always an option to renew a 12-month contract! Most of our clients stay with us for 2-3 years. Our goal is generally to get you to a place where you have the portfolio to justify hiring a senior Planned Giving Director in-house.

No - when it comes to marketing materials, only copy is included. When design is required, we’ll collaborate with your chosen designers (even if it’s just your in-house staff using Canva templates), or we can bring in a trusted design partner for an additional fee.

Yes! This is included in all our done-for-you contracts. We will coach you and your whole team - there is no limit on the number of people who attend our trainings and coaching sessios.

If a fundraiser or fundraising consultant offers guaranteed results, RUN. That’s probably a sign they are doing something unethical. Fundraising success takes time and consistency. Your results depend on where you’re starting and level of investment in Planned Giving. Right now, most mid-sized organizations without Planned Giving support are seeing no progress, while we’ve raised $300,000-$2 million in future revenue for the charities we’ve worked with.

Our focus is on full programs. Piecemeal Planed Giving tactics have failed many charities, so we’re taking a different approach. Plus we love joining your team, and building everything that’s needed to be successful in Planned Giving.

We offer customized services and coaching packages outside of our 2 main services, however our full PLAN Framework is at the core of everything we do.

If you’re not sure if you need a single project or a full program, book a discovery call. We can help you figure it out, and refer you to another Planned Giving expert if we’re not a fit.