Planned Giving: How to Ask for Transformational Legacy Gifts

By Rob Henson CFRE

Planned Giving is the next great frontier in philanthropy. There has been double-digit growth in planned gifts over the past few years and that trend will continue. Non-profits that can invest some time each week in cultivating these gifts will see fundraising success for years to come.

This book will help you develop a solid and repeatable strategy to identify and cultivate potential donors. This text is designed to deliver the tools and methods to help you organize your time and team to get maximum return on investment in this important area of fundraising.

This book is different that most planned giving books. This books focuses on relationships. This is not about the technicalities of planned gifts. On these pages you will find best practices to identify donors, enlist volunteer support, and engage in meaningful relationships and planning the legacy of your donors

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781532000096

Rob Henson CFRE

Rob Henson is a fundraising professional with 15 years of experience. He holds a Master’s degree in Theological Studies and is a Certified Fund Raising Executive. Rob has managed over 80 capital campaigns and worked with over 200 global clients. He and his wife, Heather, have a blended family of four children and live in Evansville, Indiana.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 Rob Henson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-0008-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-0009-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016909570

iUniverse rev. date: 02/01/2017

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1   The Five Characteristics of Planned Giving

Chapter 2   The Opportunity

Chapter 3   The Planned Giving Ecosystem

Chapter 4   The Three Basic Types of Planned Gifts

Chapter 5   Finding Potential Donors

Chapter 6   The Stages of a Planned Giving Conversation

Chapter 7   Your Planned Giving Committee

Chapter 8   Communication and Planned Giving

Chapter 9   Measuring Your Results

Epilogue

Appendix

DEDICATION

To my grandmother, Sarah Henson-Hill. She is my first and biggest fan. She has guided me and our family with elegance, wit, grace, and an abundance of love.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, and foremost, I want to thank my wife, Heather. She loves, inspires, and challenges me. She has the best strategic mind I have ever encountered and is the most loving and loyal partner I could hope for.

I would also like to thank several people without whom this book would not be possible:

Maura Robinson for telling me over lunch that I have a book to write and challenging me to get to it.

Rev. Msgr. Ken Knapp who guided me on the path of stewardship and development many years ago.

Bentley Foster and Dan Conway who helped me transition from a staff development officer to a national consultant.

Perry Hammock and Tom Monaghan who are brothers in fundraising who generously share their wisdom with me.

INTRODUCTION

I remember so much about the day I asked for my first planned gift. I will never forget how cold it was outside and how nervous I was. There was a light rain and the holidays were just around the corner. I got to the meeting early so I could get settled. I reviewed my talking points and wondered how this conversation would end. I didn’t have any formal preparation for this moment. This was early in my fundraising career. The events of that day were about to change my career and my life forever.

The donor was ready to make a transformational gift. I knew that this day could change the future for hundreds of people in our community. The weight of that lay on my shoulders. I was just a newbie. What if I made a mistake? Throughout the rest of this book, I will bring you along in my relationship with the donor and tell you how the meeting ended!

When I reflect on that day, I wish I had owned a book like this. In those days, becoming a fundraising professional was really more like an apprenticeship but without any formalized progression (though today there are several degrees in nonprofit management and philanthropy). I had great coaching and advice to get ready for that donor meeting. Having a book to guide me through the entire process would have really helped. It would have been helpful to have everything I needed in a complete resource guide which is why I have written this book for you!

There are several books on planned giving from the very simple to the extremely complex. This book is designed for nonprofits that would like to start their first planned giving program. It can also be a handy resource for those nonprofits that have tried planned giving, but were disappointed by their results.

About a week into a new fundraising role, I was charged with starting a planned giving program. I searched online for all the relevant planned giving books. I talked with expert advisers and I was totally overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed by the complexity of the material. I was overwhelmed by the knowledge of the experts. I was overwhelmed by how technical the gifts could be in their construction.

In the beginning, what I really needed was a book to teach me how to find and reach planned gift donors. My hope is that this book will help you as you begin developing a planned giving program for your nonprofit. It contains all the information that I wish I had a couple of years ago plus a few nuggets that are new.

Another reason I wrote this book is because I believe every nonprofit should have access to clear, relevant, and practical strategies for planned giving. It can be easy to believe that only institutions that are very large, have a big national footprint, have a planned giving officer, or a planned giving department have any business being involved in the field of planned giving. That’s just not true.

It can be easy for a nonprofit to believe that they don’t have the time or the staff to be involved in planned giving. Every nonprofit no matter the size, how long you’ve been around, or how many staff you have can be involved in the wonderful field of planned giving! Planned giving shouldn’t be only accessible as a fundraising tool to the largest, most complex and well-staffed organizations. Planned giving strategies should be available to any nonprofit that wants to