rA recent survey of Catholic nonprofits yielded some thought provoking results. While all of the nonprofits surveyed agreed that Planned Giving needed to be a top priority, few had taken concrete steps to make it a priority. All seemed to recognize that the largest gifts their nonprofits would receive would likely be Planned Gifts. However, close to a majority of the nonprofits had no idea whether donors had made any planned gifts to their charity.
Also, most nonprofits that were marketing planned gifts were not using strategies successful nonprofits were using to generate significant planned gifts. Catholic nonprofits that were successful in generating planned gifts were those that closed more than $10,000,000 in planned gifts for the year surveyed, with only 9% of the organizations falling into that class. So, what planned giving strategies were making the difference and enabling nonprofits to hit their planned gift targets? Of course, there was no silver bullet or magic planned giving elixir. A combination of different media and approaches yielded the best results. At the top of the list, the marketing that was most successful in generating planned gifts? Planned giving events and newsletters.

© Mark Henry, JD