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How to Build a Planned Giving Culture – and Why You Should

How to Build a Planned Giving Culture – and Why You Should

Delayed gratification is rare phenomenon in our culture. We’re used to instant news, immediate feedback, and next-day delivery. The days of waiting for the mail, waiting in line, and waiting by the phone are long gone. 

This has permeated our fundraising culture as well. We live in a world of text-to-give, and one where we can track the progress of a campaign online, in real time.  

What do we want our organization to look like in 10 years? In 25 years? What will the world look like if we are successful?

Understandably, the urgency of raising the annual budget and achieving immediate, short-term goals is an inescapable reality for most nonprofits. If we don’t raise the money, we can’t feed the hungry, enrich our culture, make education more accessible, achieve social justice, fight disease, or unleash the creativity of young minds. 

No money, no mission. And slowing our annual fundraising isn’t an option. That’s the rub. 

Yet this sense of urgency can unintentionally undermine the long-term sustainability of our nonprofit organizations and their ability to provide critical services and opportunities. It can also cause us to shortchange our donor relationships and leave big gifts on the table.  

Fortunately, with some cultural shifts that don’t take away resources from or otherwise diminish annual fundraising, we can encourage and secure planned gifts that provide an effective way to build endowment and to ensure a measure of long-term financial stability for our organizations.  

Adopt a long-term vision of your organization and your donors. 

What does it take to build a planned giving culture?  It takes futuristic thinking –  and accepting delayed gratification. 

As executive coach, speaker, and author Brian Tracy observes:  

Economists say the inability to delay gratification is a primary predictor of economic failure in life. The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term is the indispensable prerequisite for success. 

So many nonprofit leaders and development professionals are working around the clock to raise their annual budgets under the pressure of end-of-year or end-of-quarter deadlines. It’s like the proverbial hamster wheel.  

Building a planned giving culture takes – concurrent with clear annual goals – the ability for organizational leadership to articulate a long-term vision. What do we want our organization to look like in 10 years? In 25 years? What will the world look like if we are successful? 

It takes resisting the urge to pigeonhole our donors for efficiency’s sake. Donors are not necessarily annual donors or planned giving donors. In fact, GG+A’s research shows that those donors who make planned gift commitments actually become better annual donors.  

Take the time to get to know your donors. What are their hopes for the future? What about those hopes attracted them to your organization? What is it about your mission that would inspire them to make a deferred commitment and support that same work now with their annual gifts? 

Establish the disciplines that support planned giving – and follow through. 

Building a planned giving culture takes patient persistence. Do your stewardship policies and practices only allow for donor recognition when cash is received? Instead, recognize deferred donors now and persist with meaningful stewardship over the long term. Effective stewardship of planned giving donors allows them to see the impact of their future generosity now. Patient relationship building cements their lifetime commitment to your organization, making those donors far less likely to change their minds and remove your organization from their estate plans in the future. 

Be intentional about carving out time to evaluate your fundraising practices and policies. Make incremental adjustments so that what you are doing now supports the future financial health of the organization, in addition to taking care of immediate needs. Be disciplined about considering the effects of today’s decisions on tomorrow’s donors. 

Don’t wait until a planned gift is realized to decide what to do with it. Have conversations with your deferred gift donors and solidify plans now. You want to ensure that, many years into the future, the organization is able to do exactly what was promised and what the donors intended to be done with their gifts. Document intentions and keep detailed records that will last through organizational personnel changes, retirements, rebranding, and relocations.  

Ensure you have policies in place now that prevent newly realized planned gifts from simply being added to the operating budget and spent. For example, in addition to documenting (and, later, following) donor intent, establish a policy that undesignated deferred gifts will be used to grow the organization’s endowment – providing long-term sustainability with a future stream of income. 

___________________________ 

Delayed gratification is like planting seeds today and patiently waiting for them to grow into fruit-bearing trees so someday you can bake an apple pie. However, with an eye concurrently on today and on the future, you can build a culture that supports planned giving and secure the financial sustainability of your organization. 

Laura Simic has more than 35 years of experience in fundraising and executive leadership in public and private higher education. Her background includes work as a planned giving director and two decades of executive leadership experience encompassing all areas of institutional advancement. To connect with Laura about your fundraising objectives, email lsimic@grenzglier.com.  

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About the author

Laura Simic

Vice President

Laura Simic, Vice President, brings more than 35 years of experience in fundraising and executive leadership in public and private higher education to the GG+A team.  She has frontline development officer and two decades of executive leadership experience encompassing all areas of advancement including alumni relations, advancement services, communications, annual…

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