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Listen and learn: Marketing your planned giving program

By Louise Chatterton Luchuk
March 31, 2008

They say that two things in life are certain - death and taxes - and planned giving deals with both. At first glance, the idea of marketing planned giving programs might appear to require a certain degree of delicacy. After all, isn’t it about asking people to think about their own death? While it may appear that way at first, planned giving professionals explain it differently.

“You establish planned giving discussions with a donor after you have an established relationship. Over the course of multiple conversations, the discussion about planned giving unfolds. You are providing a donor with options they’re interested in. It’s about what they need, and the conversation naturally evolves through building relationships,” explains Robbie Gamble, manager of donor relations and planned giving for the Canadian Red Cross in Saskatchewan.

The importance of listening

What’s most important is to let the donor talk and, as you listen, let them know about special opportunities they might be interested in. They are already engaged in the charity and the planned gift naturally follows. Adds Gamble, “I prefer thinking about how you inform a donor rather than focusing on ‘marketing'. It troubles me to compare what I do with something we associate with selling or sales.”

When Jennifer Paradis, national coordinator of LEAVE A LEGACY™, talks about promoting planned giving, she doesn’t consider it a delicate or difficult topic. LEAVE A LEGACY™, an initiative of the Canadian Association of Gift Planners (CAGP), is a national public awareness program intended to encourage Canadians to make a planned gift to the charity of their choice.

Like Gamble, Paradis sees the conversation as a natural progression of the relationship with a donor. “It’s a privilege. We’re not really marketing. The relationships have been built over time and the donor has usually been donating for a while. A lot of times, our members bring up the considerable tax benefits of legacy giving. That’s one of the ways our members would broach the topic with a donor.”

Planned giving in the here and now

Of course, planned giving doesn’t even have to be about a gift deferred until after death. Linda Clemow, vice president of philanthropy and fund development for the YMCA of Simcoe/Muskoka, points out that marketable securities through stocks and bonds or charitable gift annuities are planned gift options that benefit charities during the donor’s lifetime.

One of the by-products of listening and building a relationship with a donor is that you learn their story, and Clemow makes the most of this to market current planned gifts. “If I have an individual who has made a charitable gift annuity,” she says, “I ask them why they chose to make this type of gift and I ask if I can use their name and tell their story in any of my marketing material. I’ve always had people agree. I have found that by being able to tell someone’s story it encourages others to think about how it can be applied to them.”

The primary audience for planned giving marketing material is current donors carefully chosen from the donor database. Many organizations don’t have age-related data about their donors, but Clemow points out there are clues hiding in your database. She recommends looking for the length of time a donor has made donations, or details that indicate the spouse is deceased. She also points out that if it is a “Miss Smith” that has made donations for 20 years, it is likely someone who has never married and is likely older, as otherwise they would probably go by Ms. Smith. While these clues are not infallible, “it’s better to reach the 30-year-old that you didn’t realize was 30 years old, than not reach that person at all,” concludes Clemow.

Be careful what you say (or print!)

There are lessons to be learned along the way, however. Clemow recalls one 90-year-old woman who had made a bequest to the organization Clemow was with at the time. This woman wanted to see her money in action so she made a bequest, but took half of the money and made an immediate gift. Following her practice of capturing the human interest story attached to a planned gift, Clemow asked permission to include the woman’s story in their newsletter. Clemow interviewed her, wrote the article and allowed the donor to review the story. Recalls Clemow, “She was a very private person so I gave her every opportunity to not be identified, but she felt so strongly about what she had done that she wanted her name associated with this. I let her know that people would approach her and talk to her; she was going to be like an advocate for our organization. I asked her if this was okay with her.” It was...until Clemow’s prediction happened. People did start phoning and the donor became upset that her privacy had been invaded. “What I learned,” says Clemow, “was that you need to think long and hard if you are going to include someone’s first and last name - even if you have their permission.”

Planned giving and the female donor

Making decisions about whom in your database to market to is a strategic decision. Strategic planned giving marketing focuses on targeting mature individuals by age distribution, by values, by life stages and by gender. Sherry Clodman, principal of EH Pearce Consulting, a full service fundraising consultancy with a specialty in planned giving, has written three books about planned giving, including one dedicated to marketing.

According to Clodman, targeting by gender is so important that it should be considered a target market in its own right, but traditionally gift planners have either overlooked or paid too little attention to gender as a marketing factor. “Typically, and until the recent past, men have been the financial decision-makers and the donors of major and planned gifts. Women, either in their own right, or as half of a couple, now exert a far greater influence on charitable decision-making than was previously the case. A gift planner cannot afford to miss this fact or its future significance and must be prepared to respond in substantive ways.”

One way to do this is by communicating properly to women. Clodman points out that women tend to be more talkative in mixed group settings, are quick to establish rapport, and tend to personalize their conversations. Women more frequently use hand gestures and body language, more easily exude empathy, use small talk versus significant talk, and are usually more inclusive. With this in mind, Clodman encourages gift planners to be ‘active’ listeners by reflecting, paraphrasing, clarifying and drawing out women in conversation.

This brings us full circle to the importance of listening when marketing your planned giving programs. In the words of Gamble, “I keep saying it...listening is so important. When you have an established relationship, they will talk about it. Don’t push. Just listen. Let them lead. It’s about respect.”

Louise Chatterton Luchuk is a freelance writer and consultant who combines her love of writing with experience at the local, provincial and national levels of volunteer-involving organizations. For more information, visit www.luchuk.com.

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