©Partnership for Philanthropic Planning 2009. All rights reserved.

October 14-17, 2009National Harbor, Maryland

Conference Presentation Paper

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Planned Giving Marketing Trends of Top Fundraisers

August 28, 2009

Brendon Steenbergen Director of Development for Annual and Planned Giving

Columbia College

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Planned Giving Marketing Trends of Top Fundraisers

Ten years ago, the most highly regarded gift planners were surveyed about how they conducted business, how they marketed their vision and what they foresaw as the future for the field of planned giving. The responses given served not only as a valuable tool for other gift planners, but as a visionary crystal ball, providing insight into new techniques and theories that would eventually help make planned giving become a crucial component of most charitable giving programs.

A decade now having past, what changes have taken place, both with the strategies of gift planners and within the culture at large? Do successful techniques of the late nineties still hold potency today? What new marketing strategies are being developed and how rapidly are they being adopted by the industry? These questions have led to the development of a new survey. Our hope is to not only answer questions of the past, but to elicit creative new approaches to problems that continually confront the modern gift planner.

Participants

As with the original 1998 evaluation, we issued our survey to the top 40 fundraisers as defined by the October 30, 2008 issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. The top ten percent of “The Philanthropy 400” were questioned on a broad spectrum of gift planning issues ranging from: budget issues, to demographic information, to marketing strategies to listing valuable third-party industry consultants. With an 82.5% response rate to our survey, our sample was of a similar size to the 1998 survey which reported an 83% response rate. Respondents represented a diverse spectrum of fundraising organizations: colleges and universities, hospitals and medical centers, museums and libraries, community foundations, etc.

In an expanded analysis from the original 1998 project, the survey was then issued nationally via email to all members of the Partnership of Philanthropic Planning. The national data could then be used to compare with that of the top fundraiser responses.

The 2008 Philanthropy 400 – The Chronicle of Philanthropy Top 40 Organizations ____________________________ 1. United Way of America 2. Salvation Army 3. Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund 4. American Cancer Society 5. Food for the Poor 6. YMCA 7. Feed the Children 8. AmeriCares Foundation 9. Schwab Fund for Charitable Giving 10. Stanford University 11.Catholic Charities USA 12. Gifts in Kind International 13. World Vision 14. Habitat for Humanity International 15. Boys & Girls Clubs of America 16. Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program

The 1998 Philanthropy 400 – The Chronicle of Philanthropy Top 40 Organizations ____________________________ 1. Salvation Army 2. YMCA of the USA 3. American Red Cross 4. American Cancer Society 5. Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund 6. Harvard University 7. Catholic Charities USA 8. Second Harvest 9. Boys & Girls Clubs of America 10. Stanford University 11. American Heart Association 12. YWCA of the USA 13. Gifts in Kind International 14. World Vision 15. Boy Scouts of America 16. Campus Crusade for Christ International

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The 2008 Philanthropy 400 – The Chronicle of Philanthropy Top 40 Organizations (continued) ____________________________ 17. Feeding America 18. Harvard University 19. American Red Cross 20. American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital 21. United Jewish Communities National Office 22. National Christian Foundation 23. Campus Crusade for Christ International 24. Goodwill Industries International 25. Nature Conservancy 26. American Heart Association 27. University of Southern California 28. Johns Hopkins University 29. Columbia University 30. Jewish Communal Fund 31. University of California at Berkeley 32. Cornell University 33. MAP International 34. University of Pennsylvania 35. Yale University 36. Tulsa Community Foundation 37. Boy Scouts of America 38. Duke University 39. Partners Healthcare System 40. Mayo Clinic

The 1998 Philanthropy 400 – The Chronicle of Philanthropy Top 40 Organizations (continued) ____________________________ 17. Nature Conservancy 18. Habitat for Humanity International 19. Shriners Hospital for Children 20. Cornell University 21. Duke University 22. University of Wisconsin at Madison 23. Yale University 24. Columbia University 25. University of California at Los Angeles 26. WGBH Educational Foundation 27. University of California at Berkeley 28. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital 29. Goodwill Industries International 30. University of Pennsylvania 31. Public Broadcasting Service 32. Johns Hopkins University 33. Larry Jones International Ministries/ Feed the Children 34. Mayo Foundation 35. University of Michigan 36. AmeriCares Foundation 37. University of Southern California 38. Osmond Foundation (Children’s Miracle Network) 39. March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation 40. Lutheran Services of America

* Institutions that appear on both lists are listed in bold.

Survey Framework and Strategy

The analysis consisted of a comprehensive 48 question survey distributed through the web-based site SurveyMonkey.com. Survey participants were asked if they would like to keep their responses anonymous and many chose to. As such, all data and written responses are reported anonymously. The study was broken into six categories of questions: general information, budget, strategies, demographics, expectations and results and contact information. Questions were presented in single-answer, multiple-answer, multiple-choice and short answer format. Most multiple-choice questions were accompanied by an “Other” short answer field that allowed participants to enter information not available in a specific question. A link to the survey was distributed to the target organizations and they were given three weeks to respond.

Results

As with the original 1998 survey, this study was designed to use descriptive statistics, not inferential statistics. The result is a “snapshot” of what happened in 2008 amongst the top 40 fundraising institutions;

however, rather than extrapolating these results to represent national trends, results from our corresponding national survey should be used as a better representative of the entire population of fundraising institutions.

Survey Responses

Importance of Planned Giving to your organization

Perhaps one of the most critical issues to look at before evaluating industry trends is that of the importance of planned giving within an organization’s overall fundraising strategy. If the role of gift planners is seen to be diminishing within the structure of top fundraising organizations, then much of what can be learned from this survey would be lessened in value. In 1998, 82% of top fundraisers marketed planned gifts. Is this still true today? It is important to determine whether the wind has been removed from the sails of gift planners before we devote time and attention to how to mend the sails.

Participants in our contemporary survey were asked to weigh in on this very issue. They were questioned: “How would you characterize planned giving at your organization?” 89% of respondents claimed that planned giving was “increasing in importance” and no responses were recorded that planned giving was “decreasing in importance.”

This strong endorsement of planned giving within an overall fundraising strategy proves the viability of gift planners within their organization and underscores the importance of what the industry is doing right, what it is doing wrong, and how it is changing. Evidence of the evolving role of planned giving can be seen within the responses to this first crucial question. While 27.8% noted that planned giving has continued to remain a separate fundraising department, 5.6% of organizations have begun to alter their structure and merge their planned giving department with their major gifts department.

Overall, these trends were reflected in the nationwide poll except in the area of planned gift departmental structure. In the nationwide survey, nearly 20% of respondents claim that their gift planning and major gifts departments had merged. It may be too early to determine whether the increased number of departmental mergers represents earlier adopters of a growing trend or a statistical anomaly, but there is clearly interest in reevaluating and molding the traditional models of planned giving departments to find what works best for fundraising organizations.

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Figure 1: 2009 National Survey                Figure 2: 2008 Top 40 Survey

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There are profound messages to be taken from respondents on this question. The first message is that planned giving is clearly growing in importance relative to organizations’ overall fundraising strategy and second, many organizations are becoming willing to experiment with their planned giving programs in order to find the most beneficial approaches to their institution.

What’s in your plan?

It is clear our respondents felt planned giving was important (taking the time to respond to our survey is also proof of that) but how do different organizations build their planned giving strategy? Most survey participants found advice from colleagues useful, but organizations used a wide range of assets for counsel, including list-serves, outside consultants, local planned giving councils, publications, web sites and legal counsel. This broad spectrum of advisors is not surprising given the increasing complexity of devising a successful planned giving marketing plan and as with the 1998 survey; a majority of our contemporary respondents do rely on a formal plan. Ten years ago, 72% of respondents reported a formal market plan was part of their planned giving strategy. Today, 80% report the same. Amongst those responding to the national survey, that number dips to 63.8%, but amongst the top 40 fundraising institutions of 2008, which is the only group that can be empirically compared to the top 40 from 1998, there has been an increase in the percentage of formal marketing plans.

Has this increased focus on marketing translated into positive results? Our earlier responses indicating that planned giving has increased in importance would suggest so, but let’s probe further. We asked participants what the major benefits of marketing planned giving were. The responses were diverse and informative, but one phrase cropped up more than any other— “prospect identification.” Organizations found that by marketing their planned giving programs, they were not only finding people who had an interest in making a planned gift, but they were identifying donors who had already made a planned gift but had never notified the organization about it. The majority found that the most effective approach to attracting these prospects was to have a clear and repeated message. One respondent wrote the significant factor was “…finding new prospects, based on repeated messages.”

Another summed up the sentiment with:

“Creating new relationships with donors is a significant benefit.”

Other benefits stood out as well. Awareness was a key benefit. Many respondents felt that their marketing campaigns were vital to reminding potential donors about the benefits of their planned giving programs. Some examples of this sentiment are as follows:

“Keeping them aware. ‘We’re here, we’re here, we’re here.’”

“Keeping the message in front of our donors.”

“Making sure people know that we value bequests of any size…”

A final benefit that repeatedly came up from respondents is perhaps the most obvious one: to bring their organization more money. Though people not familiar with planned gift fundraising might expect this to be the single most important reason to promote their program, respondents mentioned “increased gifts” far fewer times than “prospect identification” or “awareness” and most listed “stewardship” on an equal footing with “increased gifts.” Certainly, none of the survey participants would diminish the importance of increasing the gifts to their respective organizations, but building a foundation for relationships and

educating donors about how their institutions can interact and help each other is as it was a decade ago; vital to the prolonged success of any fundraising operation.

Marketing Strategies

From the organizations surveyed, it can be determined that most feel a formal marketing plan is useful and that most have a specific objective in mind when creating that plan. With this groundwork laid, it is important to determine how top fundraisers lay out their strategy for success. Survey participants were asked to list elements of their marketing plan and rank them by importance. Overwhelmingly, the industry’s top players chose “personal contact” as both the most utilized and most important element to their planned giving marketing scheme. This emphasis on building personal relationships correlates strongly to the trend we discussed earlier within many organizations of merging their planned giving departments with their major gift departments. The increased ability to reach out to and communicate directly with potential donors echoes the organizational value placed on personal contact.

Nearly as crucial to organizational marketing strategies is the idea of consistently promoting the organization’s goals and message. As a clear and repeated message was listed earlier as a benefit to having a marketing plan, explicitly spreading that message in a consistent way was chosen as an effective strategy for maximizing success. Stated in another way; it’s a self-sustaining cycle. Successful marketing plans allow you to actively repeat your message, and repeating your message is an essential tool for a successful marketing plan. Positioning and branding, selling the mission and board support were a few of the other strategic elements listed as important to the overall plan. This response is quite telling in that some things never change. What worked then (1998) holds true today. The top three strategies ten years ago were also consistent promotion, personal contact and positioning/branding.

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Figure 3: 2008 Top 40 Survey

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While there is overall consensus, gift planners are not a homogenous group and what works for one may not work for all. Many respondents for instance, found that direct mail newsletters and promotions were a good way to get potential donors to self-identify, but when asked “What marketing strategies have not worked well?” other respondents listed newsletters and direct mail promotions as having failed. With this in mind, it’s important to note that investigating what hasn’t worked for gift planners can be as much or more valuable than asking what has been successful. Marketing your planned giving program can be an expensive proposition and avoiding a dead end approach without investing significant resources can certainly be appreciated by anyone who’s had to reconcile their departmental budget.

Responses were varied, but a recurring approach that failed to generate positive results for top fundraisers seemed to be planned giving seminars. Repeatedly, participants noted that attempting to attract donors to these types of events produced underwhelming results. Some responses were:

“Estate planning seminars for donors/prospects don’t seem to produce many actual gifts.”

“Seminars – Retirement planning/estate planning information is ubiquitous. No added value for alumni.”

Others noted that they were displeased with the response to email based solicitations and promotions. One noted “We have not had much success with e-mail messages, and some people are now telling us that we send too much promotional material.”

Still others felt that they could attribute failed marketing attempts to “painting with too broad a brush” or by not targeting groups for direct mail. While some direct marketers have the philosophy that the more pieces you distribute, the more chance you’ll have to bring in a higher gift total. The problem that crops up from this philosophy is that every piece that goes out has a cost associated with it, and the lower your response rate, the lower the bang for your buck. A well targeted direct mail solicitation, sent to a well known audience of 5,000 people with a high chance of affinity for your cause, may bring in $10,000. The piece may have a 5% response rate and cost $0.65 per piece for a total cost of $3,250.

A broad based solicitation sent to a data dump of everyone in an organization’s database, say 30,000 people, may bring in $12,000 and have a 1.5% response rate. At the same cost per piece, the total cost for the solicitation would be $19,500. These numbers are theoretical but they point to the reality that casting a wide net is rarely worth the paltry additional gains. A well targeted mailing trims the fat off of solicitation costs and does not burden prospects that are highly unlikely to be receptive to your message.

This reality is reflected in the responses given highlighting lessons hard learned that a larger pool of recipients is not necessarily a better pool of recipients. When asked to list failed approaches, comments included:

“Direct marketing to an audience that is too broad.”

“Direct mail to non-targeted list”

Other approaches to accomplishing the goals of your marketing plan may not necessarily be failures, but instead are more focused on a single aspect of your plan. Not all strategies and tactics are designed to do all things for all people. Generating planned gifts would be a much easier task if every measure at your disposal could generate new prospects, inform prospects of giving options, generate new gifts and steward existing donors. Since the world we live in is more complex than that, we must be satisfied with utilizing specific tools for specific tasks.

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For instance, approximately half (51.4%) of our respondents use predictive modeling programs to analyze their databases to identify top prospects. Using this kind of software is expensive and requires a great deal of time to make sense of the results it produces, and even if done correctly, it will only ever accomplish one task: identifying new prospects. You will still need to find innovative and possibly labor intensive ways to make use of these prospects, but the one task the predictive modeling programs are designed to do is an important one.

This is just one example of a tool that can’t solve all of our problems, but is important, nonetheless. We have no panaceas to solving the issues we face and it is important to not treat any one tool as if it can provide all the answers. Just because we have become experts with a hammer, does not mean that we should treat all problems like a nail.

Going to the Well

As anyone involved with planned giving knows, there is a vast and complex combination of giving options available to donors that serve a multitude of different giving needs and function in dramatically different ways. It is important for a fundraising organization to market their planned giving options, not only to educate donors about their many choices and potential benefits, but also to learn which technique is most important to the organization. Most fundraisers will learn quickly what methods of giving are most successful in their organization, and as new options become available or as old options change over time, it will be enlightening to see if the successful techniques from 1998 are still the “bread and butter” of today

Figure 4: 2008 Top 40 Survey

The “bread and butter,” when referring to planned giving, are ‘wills and bequests.’ In 1998, 100% of participants marketed ‘wills and bequests’ in their fundraising program, and 94.4% of participants market them in the 2008 survey. When we expand outward and review our national survey, the results hold true, with 98.6% of respondents market ‘wills and bequests.’ This is obviously the cornerstone of any planned giving department, as it has been for years.

In 1998, only two other planned giving options came close to wills and bequests: ‘charitable gift annuities’ (91%) and ‘charitable remainder trusts’ (87%). Over the past ten years, the focus of planned gifts has shifted a bit. ‘Charitable gift annuities’ are still used at the same rate (91.7%) but utilization of ‘charitable remainder trusts’ has fallen to 75% in the 2008 top 40 survey. In the national study, only 71.8% of respondents claim to use ‘charitable remainder trusts’. In our 2008 Top 40 survey, this total was surpassed by those choosing ‘retirement plan assets’ at 83.3% compared to 74% choosing the same in 1998. One can only speculate why the focus has shifted from ‘charitable remainder trusts’ to pension-based ‘retirement plan assets’, but the trend continues within the national survey, as 75% chose ‘retirement plan assets’ again ahead of ‘charitable remainder trusts.’

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Other trends that have emerged over the last ten years are an increase in usage of ‘life insurance’ (52% of respondents in 2008 compared to 35% in 1998), an increase in usage of ‘donor advised funds’, (18% in 2008 versus 3% in 1998), and a significant drop in the use of ‘pooled income funds’ (25% in 2008 versus 58% in 1998).

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Tactics for reaching the donor pool remain largely the same as they did ten years ago, but the growing importance of new media in reaching prospects is observable in comparing results from 1998 to 2008. Web sites are tied with personal contact for number one, when ranking the top 2008 methods of reaching prospects. The use of web sites was important in 1998 as well, but it was listed by 83% of respondents, good for third place in that poll while 91% of respondents reported using web sites for contacting prospects in the contemporary survey. E-mail was listed in 2008 as the seventh most frequently used tactic for reaching prospects and did not make the top 12 tactics listed in 1998. Additionally, a mention was made on our national survey to the recent adoption of social networking media (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) into their marketing strategy. One could speculate if this format might represent the next wave of innovation in planned giving marketing communication, should this survey be revisited in a few years.

  2008 Survey          1998 Survey   

  Tactic  % Used        Tactic  % Used 

1  Web Sites  91%      1 Newsletters  87% 

2  Personal Contact  91%      2 Personal Contact  84% 

3  Newsletters  85%      3 Web Site  84% 

4  Target Letters  82%      4 Advertising  77% 

5  Direct Mail  82%      5 Target Letters  77% 

6  Telephone Contact  76%      6 Telephone Contact  74% 

7  Email  68%      7 Seminars  71% 

8  Seminars  47%      8 Direct Mail  65% 

9  Advertising  47%      9 Heritage Society  39% 

10  Alumni Magazine  41%      10 Video  16% 

11  External Publications  18%      11 Special Events  10% 

12  Video  6%      12 Leave A Legacy  3% Figure 5: 2008 Top 40 Survey         Figure 6: 1998 Top 40 Survey

Generating New Ideas

When asked what marketing strategies have been used to move beyond a traditional planned giving approach, the responses were incredibly candid and diverse. Some respondents were quite frank with comments like these:

“We don’t and haven’t done a single new thing.”

“None.”

“We don’t have any need to.”

Others probed into the question further. Several mentions were made to focusing their efforts on a “donor-centric” message. The innovative approaches and networking opportunities garnered from peer programs was noted as having a positive effect and allowed planned giving officers the opportunity to tap into a wealth of peer resources for new ideas. Another respondent commented that looking into successful operations within the private sector has been an effective means of finding successful marketing strategies. Still another respondent mentioned that by incorporating members of their organization, like their board of

trustees, that had not traditionally been utilized for fundraising before, they were able to make connections that would have otherwise been impossible.

Who are you looking for?

When studying tactics for marketing their planned giving programs, many respondents noted the importance of targeting their prospects and identifying those most likely to give. To look at this in further detail, we asked participants to tell us what demographic parameters were most important to their organization and what groups within this segment did they find the most important to their work? By and large, age was a primary means of segmentation for most planned giving professionals. The breakdown and focus placed on members within various age levels is illustrated

below. Figure 7: 2008 Top 40 Survey

The results of the 1998 study show that when targeting prospects by age, not much has changed. Prospects aged 55 and older are clearly the demographic of focus. Specifically in our 2008 Top 40 study, 72% of respondents targeted those 55-64 years of age, 94% targeted those 65-74, and 91% targeted those 75 and older. No other age group garnered even 50% of participant interest.

While the age groups most focused on haven’t changed much, the generations who fall into these groups have. In 1998, most of the prospects that fell into the group of recently retired were molded from a young age around the events of the Great Depression. They saw the nation through World War II and are, as Tom Brokaw famously dubbed them, “The Greatest Generation.”

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Today, recent retirees were likely born during the time of World War II and came of age in the 1950s and 1960s. This generation is sometimes—unfairly in my estimation—dubbed the “Silent Generation,” because they fell between the highly heralded “Greatest Generation” and the great mass of “Baby Boomers.” Members of this group have seen radical changes develop over the course of their lives. They

are willing and eager to give to projects that they see as making a difference, because they have seen how much can be done in a country and in a culture over the course of a lifetime.

The impact of the group to soon follow has been discussed at length, not just amongst gift planners and demographers, but across nearly all fields. Because of the cultural, economic and demographic power that the “Baby Boomer” generation wields, the retirement and giving decisions made by this unprecedentedly large group, we as gift planners must be ready to provide them with a message that will resonate.

Looking further down the road, it is important for us to understand the changing needs of younger generations as well. We focus our energies on those who are nearing retirement, but if we ignore those who are not quite there yet, it will only be more difficult to reach them when their thoughts turn to planned gifts. “Generation X,” “Generation Y,” and “Generation Next” will not see the world in the same way our current prospects due, and if we do not adapt our strategies to their changing needs and interests, we will not be able to successfully reach them.

Figure 8: 2000 U.S. Census Bureau

Besides age, other demographic segmentations that were used by planned giving professionals included: income level, education level, and family situation. Few of our survey participants found value in segmenting populations by gender or geographic area. When studying income or education levels, organizations simply found that more is better. For instance, only 6.5% of organizations targeted individuals with a high school education, but 45.2% of respondents sought individuals with a college degree. With regards to income, 6.5% targeted those making less than $50,000 a year, but 48.4% targeted individuals making more than $75,000 per year. Groups that targeted individuals based on their current family situation showed mixed preferences, but the two circumstances that drew the most interest were the target groups “single, 65 or older, with no children” and “married, 65 or older, with no children.”

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Very little data from our 2008 Top 40 survey or our national survey found statistically significant changes in demographic profiling from ten years ago. The original 1998 report stated “Demographic parameters for identifying new prospects are actually simple. The best planned giving prospect for the top fundraisers is a

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single person or married couple, aged 55 and older with no children.” Our evidence suggests that this assessment is as true today as it was in 1998.

Getting Help

Successfully marketing and acquiring planned gifts requires the ability to juggle many complex and often disparate tasks. Gift planners often employ the services of outside agencies to assist them with these undertakings. In fact, 60% of respondents directly utilized consultants while 84% disclosed that they relied on peer institutions and outside colleagues to generate marketing ideas. Survey participants also reported using the services of other allied professionals including attorneys, certified financial planners, trust officers, certified public accountants and insurance agents.

Respondents also reported gathering information from industry conferences and seminars. The highest ranking conferences are listed below.

1. Partnership for Philanthropic Planning (PPP, formerly NCPG) 2. Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) 3. National Society of Fundraiser Executives (NSFRE) 4. American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA)

The top ranking seminars are as follows.

1. National Planned Giving Institute 2. The Sharpe Groupe (tie) 2. PGCalc (tie) 4. Crescendo 5. R&R Newkirk 6. Stelter (tie) 6. CASE (tie)

Additional sources of outside information that gift planners use to breathe life into their programs are research materials, specifically industry publications and journals, books and fundraising software applications. Notably, 80% of respondents noted that industry publications such as Planned Giving Today and The Journal of Gift Planning are useful in building their gift planning programs.

Figure 9: 2008 Top 40 Survey 

Tracking and Evaluating Results

Accountability is essential when determining if your marketing efforts are successful. Different metrics can be used to determine success (total dollars, number of gifts, new donors acquired, etc.) but whatever metric is most important to your organization, it must be able to be tracked. Nearly 80% of respondents confirmed that they use some sort of tracking system for gifts from their planned giving system.

Figure 10: 2008 Top 40 Survey

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Most noted that their donor database software provided them capability to track these gifts. Raiser’s Edge in particular was mentioned multiple times in our nationwide survey as the software system used for tracking gifts from organizations’ marketing plans. Other smaller organizations resorted to manually tracking results though a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or even a folder of gift records. One organization relied on a single individual to keep track of all planned gifts generated through their marketing plan. Still other organizations admitted to being unable to implement and a successful tracking system. Organization tactics such as assigning solicitation codes to individual mailings and populating a database with results tied to these codes seem to be the most successful and sophisticated methods for recording accurate

internal statistics. Organizations with the infrastructure tend to have the most confidence in both their databases and marketing plans.

Just over half of survey participants noted that they also re-evaluated their marketing plans on an annual basis. 39% said that they re-evaluated their plans semiannually and 9% claimed to re-evaluate their plans on a biannual basis. Two respondents said they re-evaluate their plan constantly.

Budget

In 1998, gift planners mostly claimed that despite the importance they placed on marketing their programs, they either had little control over their marketing budget, or the budget they did allocate did not reflect this importance. Only 32% reported having a budget driven by their planned giving programs and a full 26% claimed they simply backed into their budget.

Responses when asked how organizations determine an appropriate marketing budget in 2008, suggested little change. Only 26% of organizations claimed to have a program based budget while 22% backed into their annual planned giving marketing budget. One significant increase was found amongst those who claimed to base their budget upon “changing needs.” In 1998, 6.5% reported this as the driver of their budget, but a full 19% of respondents chose this option. Expanding the definition of changing needs, one might suppose that planned giving programs are annually designed to address changing needs and in this regard, those who see their budget based upon changing needs may be regarding their marketing budget planning process as quite similar to those who claim to have a program driven budget. Under this combined structure, 58% of 1998 respondents made budget plans based on programs/needs compared to 48% in 208. This reading of survey responses lends itself to a more structured and predetermined nature to gift planner budgeting. Perhaps this is overly optimistic. In any case, future studies should more clearly define the survey options so as not to pigeon-hole participant responses.

The amount of money spent on planned giving marketing is also remarkably similar in 2008 as in 1998. One would expect budgets to slowly grow at least with the rate of inflation over a ten year period, but at least according to the anecdotal results of this survey, this does not seem to be the case.

1998 Planned Giving Marketing Budgets 

Figure 11: 1998 Top 40 Survey

2008 Planned Giving Marketing Budgets

Figure 12: 2008 Top 40 Survey

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In 2008, 29% of survey participants reported spending more than $100,000 on their planned giving marketing budgets. This is nearly identical to the results in 1998 when 30% reported the same. Perhaps the lack of control many gift planners have for their own budget reflects the lack of change over the ten year

span but regardless of cause, budgetary spending continues to not reflect the emphasis gift planners have on marketing their programs.

Spending on marketing as a percentage of overall planned giving budgets does reflect a shift, decidedly toward spending less overall on marketing compared to other program expenses. In 1998, 18% reported spending more than 75% of their planned giving budget toward marketing and only 44% reported spending 50% or less of their total budget on marketing. In 2008, the picture has changed dramatically. Only 4% report spending more than 75% of their budget toward marketing and a whopping 88% spend 50% or less of their planned giving budget on marketing.

With the dramatic decrease in percentage of overall spending going to marketing and yet overall spending remaining similar to 1998 levels, it stands to reason that overall planned giving budgets have risen dramatically. Unfortunately, planned giving marketing plans of top fundraising organizations have not benefitted much from these gains.

1998 Planned Giving Marketing Budgets

Figure 13: 1998 Top 40 Survey

2008 Planned Giving Marketing Budgets 

Figure 14: 2008 Top 40 Survey

Conclusion

The most important thing in our business is our message. Friends and supporters of our cause are out there and are just waiting to hear a good reason to help you. You will never convince a prospect who does not want to support your cause to give. The gifts you receive are from people who believe in your organization and your message. They want to make a difference for your organization as much as you do. Our job is simply to provide them with the right call to action.

The means of sharing this message are innumerable, and only a handful are the right means for you and your organization. Our continuing mission is to find the right combination of ideas and strategies that will reach not only the most people, but will most effectively reach people. Marketing strategies have evolved over time and while some plans have not lived up to expectations and have been scrapped or revised, good ideas stand the test of time. A plethora of marketing concepts and strategies are at our finger tips, but the key to success in gift planning as with many things in life is to make a plan and follow through.

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Bibliography

Kateman, Michael. Planning to Market and Marketing the Plan, An Overview of Marketing Planned Gifts, 12th National Conference on Planned Giving, 1999.

Mangone, Betsy, Thomas, Lynn. Identifying Markers of Planned Giving Program Success, 14th National Conference on Planned Giving, 2001.

United States Census Bureau. United States Census, 2000.

“The Philanthropy 400.” The Chronicle of Philanthropy. 30 October 2008.

“The Philanthropy 400.” The Chronicle of Philanthropy. 5 October 1998.

Jordan, Ronald R., Quynn, Katelyn L. Planned Giving: Management, Marketing and Law. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995

Special Thanks

This research would not have been possible without the thoughtful counsel and assistance of the following people.

Michael Kateman, Executive Director of Development and Alumni Relations, Columbia College Barbara Yeager, Director of Operations, Partnership for Philanthropic Planning Todd Fogdall, Director of Development & Education, Civic Center of Greater Des Moines Logan Muehlman, Development Coordinator, Columbia College