For the first time in my career, I’m grateful to be working with an outstanding development team at ProPublica that – while specialized across different areas – is essentially un-siloed. I don’t have a “planned giving department.” I don’t want one Instead, I’m partnering with everyone to incorporate and integrate planned and legacy giving across all areas of fundraising. It’s been my dream – I believe fundraising siloes and related crediting policies have been incredibly damaging to our organizations.  And I believe that “planned giving” as a separate specialized department has thoroughly run its course.

Over the past years as I’ve worked with many amazing organizations – large, small, with mature programs and those just getting off the ground – I’ve encouraged them to break free from the traditional ways of doing planned giving and for teams to develop cross-department/cross-channel competencies that will elevate all fundraising strategies.

But for the first time, I’ve gotten to create that type of program – of course, building on the amazing, smart, collaborative work the fundraising team has done since 2008, when the organization was founded.

Because we’re a newer organization, there wasn’t a calcified structure to dismantle, and because there wasn’t a “planned giving” department – but WAS a culture of great stewardship and donor relationship-building around current and future gifts – we’ve been able to build the kind of program I’ve always wanted to lead and get it moving fast.

There’s no need to wait on building planned giving engagement. Even the newest organization should be getting the message out there. I’ve found that we’re receiving realized gifts from not only non-donors, but from those who included our organization in their estate plan in the first year or two of our existence.

What does this look like?

·      No “planned giving” officers. Every donor-facing fundraiser is building fluency in creating philanthropic strategies that span current and future giving, asset giving, complex giving structures and blended gifts. And they are helping donors create some truly remarkable gifts! I’m so lucky to work with such exceptional front-line fundraisers who have been so open to elevating donor strategies in this way.

·      I don’t carry a static portfolio. Donors remaining with their portfolio managers. If they don’t have a portfolio manager, once their gift is finalized, they will be transitioned to either a manager or a stewardship portfolio.

·      No planned giving microsites or platforms or marketing “products”. Our planned giving messages and information is integrated across existing platforms. I build our own lead generation surveys on existing platforms, continually testing and optimizing, and we use existing digital platforms rather than running parallel programs.

·      No separate marketing program. While we have added some stand-alone marketing touchpoints, we have focused on building on existing campaigns, channels, and messages to ensure that planned giving messaging is smoothly and consistently incorporated wherever donors/readers engage with us. Campaigns are implemented through our usual marketing implementation processes rather than separate consultants and vendors.

·      Ongoing message testing. Because planned giving marketing is not at all amenable to post-campaign A/B testing and because marketing results are not at all correlated with ultimate long-term legacy gift finalization, we wanted to go out the door with the strongest message possible. Utilizing a market-research partners, we worked to identify both the legacy gift framing as well as the organization-specific proof points that measurable moved active interest (vs passive consideration) in making a legacy gift specifically to our organization. This won’t be a one-time effort – continual testing is important. And because so many gifts come from outside the donor file, we wanted to ensure that we were not just testing messages on our existing audience.

·      Partnership is key. We are building relationships with community foundation and other entities that can partner with us and our donors on complex gifts that minimize risk to us and expand giving options.

Is it working? Absolutely! In 6 months, we’ve launched a mult-million dollar Legacy Challenge campaign, our Legacy Circle membership has increased 60% and we are already 1/3 of the way to our 2030 goal – which we’ll likely significantly increase. Our pool of qualified leads – those who are actively engaged with us around their planning– has increased 700% and we have systems in place to personally engage every one of them. Disclosed legacy pledges have increased 365%, almost halfway to our soon-to-be increased 2030 goal. And gifts officers are working on several large, complex gifts that span current and post-lifetime giving. And I’m happier in my work that I’ve ever been.

Finally, we are using our financial resources efficiently and strategically, in a way that not only bolsters legacy giving, but fundraising across the organization, while avoiding redundancy.

What do you want to know about creating a program like this one? Let me know!