By Katherine Pooser, MPA
Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy®

The stakes are higher with the Great Wealth Transfer underway, where it’s projected that an additional $18T or $750B annually will go to charities by 2048, making Planned Giving more important than ever. Planned Giving is the focus area of the Philanthropic Planning Group of Greater New York (PPGGNY) where I serve as President. To prepare the field for the Great Wealth Transfer PPGGNY and AFP will continue to collaborate. Planned Giving is not so intimidating from the inside; with a focus on marketing, asks, and infrastructure, organizations can quickly become proficient in the fastest-growing revenue stream of the philanthropic sector.

When I started my career, I did not know about Planned Giving or the Great Wealth Transfer. Instead, I was a fundraising generalist listening to a conference speaker who said, “I align people’s assets with their values.” That is the moment my career trajectory changed to becoming a specialist in Planned Giving. After nearly a decade and a half into my Planned Giving career, the description remains the best I know, and it drives my work as we build a proactive Planned Giving program at the Cancer Research Institute (CRI).

Let’s explore what aligning assets with values means in practice.

Not once has a supporter ever started a conversation like this: “As part of the Great Wealth Transfer, I’d like your help with aligning my assets with my values.” Instead, the conversation starts usually in one of these three ways:

1. Supporter responds to a marketing piece
2. Gift Officer includes Planned Giving as an option to consider in their regular conversations with supporters
3. Supporter emails the organization’s general inbox on a random Saturday to ask what the organization’s tax ID number is

In my experience, the intimidating part of Planned Giving is not what to say after the conversation begins; it is getting the conversation started. We rely on marketing and asks or direct solicitation to be our conversation starters. Once the conversation is started, it is wildly rewarding: fundraisers get to learn about a supporter’s values, reflections on life’s purpose, their hope for the future, and their connection with the mission. Along the way, we help supporters determine the best assets for leaving to their heirs, which are best suited for charity, and how to set this all in place.

These meaningful conversations are dictated by the supporter’s timing, not the charity’s. Unlike annual fund gifts or gifts to capital campaigns, the timeline for Planned Giving is unique to each donor. Drip marketing, a steady stream of information about Planned Giving, is slowly messaged out until it aligns with the donor’s own timeline. We use this same steady-stream tactic for our gift officers, annual fund, and marketing team. Keeping all of our external communicators confident enough to make Planned Giving a relevant element of their work, which builds our pipeline for starting the conversation.

When it comes to starting conversations via asks or direct donor solicitation of Planned Gifts, it is more important to start and ask many supporters than to agonize over the perfect ask to a few. While staying current on tax codes and gift types matters, it's not necessarily what matters most. There are two reasons why:

●       Most planned gifts are bequests, and

●       Fundraisers plant seeds, not execute gift instruments.

It is the fundraiser’s role to plant the seed in Planned Giving, not execute the gift instrument. Fundraisers are representatives of the charitable organization, not financial advisors or their supporter’s attorney. Fundraisers share what is possible from both an impact and gift planning perspective, and they help supporters in many ways. This help spans from articulating their philanthropic vision to understanding gift mechanics to engaging the advisors the supporter needs to realize their plans.

How can a fundraiser plant the seed for the most common type of Planned Gift?

Bequests are when a supporter remembers a charity in their will or trust for a specific amount or percentage of their assets. See in the AI-generated comics below that asking for a bequest gift can be quite simple.

My top two favorite ways to ask:

1. Because you have been an ardent supporter of the Cancer Research Institute for so long, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask: have you also considered including us in your will or trust?
2. I spoke to another monthly donor who shared with me that she included our charity in her will. Is that something you would consider?

When we ask, “Would you consider including CRI,” it gives the donor space to reflect on their own situation. Typically, I hear a variation of responses, illustrated below, and am always prepared for the worst-case scenario responses, which usually get the same reply as a “no.” 

Once a fundraiser has opened the bequest conversation with wills and trusts, they can also share the upsides to using retirement assets for charities and remind donors to confirm their beneficiary designations on their Donor Advised Fund (DAF), life insurance, and bank and brokerage accounts. You can get up to speed by checking out these overviews of gift types we provide to CRI supporters to help them with their planning. If the donor responds positively, use the skills you have built in other fundraising domains and provide consistent and timely follow-up. If they decline, again rely on general fundraising skills, respect their wishes, and continue to build the relationship in other ways such as learning about their philanthropic priorities and philosophies.

Now that we have tackled the most intimidating part of Planned Giving, starting the conversation,let’s be sure your organization has the infrastructure to optimize the Great Wealth Transfer (and most are ways of working instead of budget items):

1. At minimum, create a simple webpage with sample bequest language and your organization’s tax ID number, address, and contact information.
2. Show supporters the organization is prepared for their ultimate gift through clear gift acceptance policies and evidence, including leadership and vision that the organization can handle transformational amounts of money (Commonly Planned Gifts are hundreds of times the size of a donor’s total lifetime giving).
3. Include the next generation of family in gift conversations.
4. Nurture a Legacy Society that creates community and stewards intentions.
5. Ask for help from other Planned Giving shops. It’s a very friendly community.

When organizations embrace marketing, asks, and infrastructure, failure is impossible. In my first Planned Giving role, I was part of a team that systematically adopted the suggestions in this article and grew legacy gift intentions from just under 400 to 4,000 in eight years, which equated to a long-term pipeline growth from $16M to $189M. The sustained effort changed the way the global organization did fundraising; planned giving became inculcated in all we did. Inculcated was our lead volunteer’s word. She was an engineer by training and believed our success hinged on momentum. The growth trajectory of gift intentions was parabolic, confirming that momentum matters.

Momentum cannot be realized without starting. Get started today, create momentum, change the way fundraising is done, and ultimately transform how the mission is delivered.

Katherine Pooser is the Director of Planned Giving at the Cancer Research Institute and President of the Philanthropic Planning Group of Greater New York. Katherine is a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP®) and holds degrees in Economics (BS) and Public Administration (MPA). She is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer whose service was in West Africa. Committed to improving the nonprofit sector, she is the host of Asking for Good, a podcast dedicated to launching and navigating nonprofit careers.