Legacy Giving on a Budget

Legacy Giving on a Low Budget

Yes, you absolutely can build a legacy giving program without spending a lot of money. There are many simple things that you are able to do in order to create a successful program with a low budget.

Existing Materials

Simply use what you've got. Look through your marketing and communications materials  that you have done in the past few years. Where can you add a legacy giving component that you don’t have to print something new, or you are going to print it anyway -- website? Annual report? 

Reordering

It is possible that your budget will not allow you to spend money on new marketing materials. In this case, determine the materials that you have to reorder. Once you have figured out what things you are going to reorder, include messaging regarding legacy giving in these items. Whether you redesign them or simply leave a checkbox for more information about legacy giving, you are able to add something legacy giving related  without having to pay any extra costs. 

E-Signature 

Another low-cost trick is to put something about legacy giving in your e-signature. Every time you're sending an email, there is some sort of tagline or your core message on the bottom. 

Training Your Staff

Once you have the information about your core message and donor value messaging, train your staff on it. When you have your colleagues on the same page, they are able to have important conversations with donors, board members, or anyone in the community. This changes your culture from transactional giving to philanthropy. 

Call Your Donors

The thing that is going to cost you nothing and get you the most value is to pick up the phone and call your donor. This will allow you to deepen your relationships with donors and gain insight into why they give.  Most importantly, as you're speaking with your donors track who you're talking with and the next steps. 

Remember that it is crucial to get your message out. Donors need to see legacy messaging many times in order for them to start to think about doing a legacy gift. It is hard to know where they are in the cycle, so you need to be front of mind with everything legacy giving. 

A Primer on Legacy Case Statements

How to Have an Effective Case Statement

A legacy case statement is one of the underutilized but important elements of a legacy program. Step back and think about why you need a legacy giving program and what your goals are. Going through the exercise of crafting your case statement will allow you to set your goals and keep you consistent and focused.

What do I mean by that? Well, when you start your legacy case statement, think about why you want legacy gifts. What does the organization need? How are you growing? What kind of challenges do you face in the future? Do you need more staff? Do you need more facilities? Are you having a growth spurt? Whatever it is that you need, put that in the case statement. 

Having this legacy case statement will keep everyone on staff and your leadership focused and consistent about what you need to raise for the future to keep your organization fiscally stable and viable. You want to increase revenue through a legacy giving program to stabilize and enable growth for the future. The work you're doing now will pay off for the future. 

Defining Your Case Statement

Your case statement is not your mission statement. Your legacy case statement is why donors should give a legacy gift to the organization. The legacy case statement is a cornerstone of your program. You need to have it in order to have a really strong marketing campaign and messaging.

Your case statement is an internal document. It could be part of your strategic planning process. If you're working out a plan, it is part of your strategy. You can attach your goals and objectives to it.

Your legacy case statement can also be an external document.  Using it in this manner, you can create a brochure or a leave-behind for your donors.

Start with a Story

The best thing that you can do is to start off with a story, and draw your donor into that story. They need to identify themselves in that story of the organization or of that donor. Tell them what they need to know for the future. Maybe the story is about a particular gift or a particular person that your organization helps, and why the organization does what it does. It needs to be different and a little unique, but understand that someone is going to identify with it.

Articulate Your Importance

Clearly define what is important about supporting your organization for the future. This is critical to separate you from other organizations and show why you are unique. Then you are going to get into what you have done successfully. Talk about what you've done successfully already, and why it's important. 

Marketing

You will be able to derive so much marketing content from your legacy case statement.  You will be able to take out your legacy messaging and use it for your e-signature and your marketing materials. You can use the story as part of a direct mail piece. You can create a brochure out of it. There are so many ways that you can slice and dice this legacy case statement. When you have the case statement, all your marketing for the year is that much easier. 

Next Steps

You're going to use this document for everything that you do in your program. A legacy case statement keeps you focused. It also creates a message that everyone in your organization can rally behind. 

Why You Are Not Getting the Legacy Gifts

Why You Aren’t Getting the Gift

When you're missing an annual gift from a donor, you feel it right away.  When you run that report and you see it is missing, you're able to follow it that year or maybe the following year. But what about when you don't get a legacy gift? That's not so easy to track. Read on to understand why you may not be getting those legacy gifts and what you can do about it to change it around and get some legacy gifts.

Your Mindset

The number one reason why you're not getting legacy gifts is your mindset. That is the first thing that you need to shift. Many people are concerned about asking for a legacy gift or have created obstacles in their heads standing in the way of having that legacy conversation. 

What kind of mindsets are those? It could be “How do I actually ask for a gift?” It could be a mindset that legacy gifts are too complicated. After all, they are about death and taxes. Maybe you are unsure of how to have a conversation with the donor, or when the right time is to have the conversation. These are common obstacles that a lot of people come across when they need to, or they know they need to, ask for legacy gifts.

You’re Overwhelmed

You might also question how to incorporate a legacy giving program within your existing development program. Perhaps you don't have enough information about legacy gifts. Maybe you think that they are only gifts that come into the future. If you're not sure about the legacy gifts themselves, that could be holding you back as well. There is a lot of information out there, and perhaps you are overwhelmed by all this information about legacy giving, and not quite understanding how to have that legacy conversation and easily add it to your program..

Support From Your Board

If you aren’t getting legacy gifts, ask yourself if your board is supportive of the program. Are they supportive of the actual program by allocating a budget and staff to the program? Do you have a budget to work with for marketing? Do you have dedicated staff to work on these legacy conversations? 

Your board should be your most engaged donors. They should be making the first legacy gifts to your organization. 

Strategy

It's great to start to have conversations with your donors, but you need to have a strategy in place in order to get that gift from the initial ask through the time that it closes. Remember that these gifts have a long lifespan to them. You may not see these gifts for many years from now, so you must have a plan in place to steward the donor and track the gift and make sure that this gift is recognized and doesn't become revocable. 

Your Legacy Messaging

You may have a strategy in place, but your strategy is not going to work if you don't understand your legacy message. This is why creating a very effective case statement that solely addresses legacy giving is so important. It's not about your mission. It's not about your programming.  The legacy case statement is going to address why your organization is unique and why donors should make a legacy donation to your organization. You and anyone that has conversations with your donors are going to be able to understand why you need a legacy gift for the future.

If you're asking for a legacy gift, your donor may decide he or she will instead give you an annual gift now. You have to be able to have that conversation about why you need it for the future, as well as annual gifts. And trust me, just saying to support the future of the organization is not the best way to do it because it's overplayed. Yes, you need to support the future of the organization. But why? What are you doing that's so important? How are you growing? What do you need that future impactful gift for? 

Next Steps

If you have a plan in place, if you break through those mindsets and those obstacles holding you back, if you understand why you need legacy gifts for the future, if your board is supportive of this, you’ll be able to have conversations with your donors. And most importantly, you’ll have clarity and confidence to take action and succeed.  

Ready to plan for Legacy Gifts this year?

Ready to plan for Legacy Gifts this year? 

Don't you love having a plan or a program in place that allows you to see how well you reached your goals? If so, read on and learn how to create a plan for legacy giving this year. As a result, you will be able to find ways to put  different actionable items into place throughout the year in order to successfully reach the goals of your organization.

Developing Goals 

But, first and foremost, what is your legacy goal? That is one of the things you must think about. If you are just starting your legacy giving plan, maybe your goal is to educate your donors. If you've been doing planned giving for a while, perhaps a couple of years or so, you might want to start bringing in more gifts or doing more solicitations.

Productive Planning

Think about going to Staples amidst the back to school madness. Personally, I am obsessed with Staples. I love going to the store and finding different items to help plan and do work. It's always exciting to go and get fresh legal pads and pens and all these different items that I could utilize to make my planning more productive.

Brainstorm what you can do to make your planning more productive. Focus on just a few goals. Don't go too over the top by thinking of lofty goals that you want to reach or 10 different goals for the year. Start with three legacy goals.

Define your Intentions and Actionable Projects

Think about and define what your intentions are. Maybe your intention is to educate your donor base about legacy giving. Then start to break out your goals into quarters and ask yourself, “What do I want to do this quarter?” Perhaps you decide to set a six month goal instead. Either way, think about what projects you actually can do to adhere to and ultimately reach your goals and pick a few to start with.

For instance, if you want to raise awareness, maybe you can write a testimonial letter to go to your donors about a gift that someone has already given to you. Or you can write an article in your newsletter educating donors, or perhaps a buck slip in your thank you letters that you send through which you can talk about legacy giving. There are endless different things you can do to raise awareness, or to reach any of your goals. 

Breaking Projects Down Into Tasks

After breaking down your goals into actionable projects, break these projects down further into tasks. This step includes assigning each element to whoever is responsible for it, whether it is you, someone else on your staff, or even an outside vendor. You'd have to look at the scope of the program and look within your organization to figure out who those right people are.

Once you go through this process, remember to review your goals monthly to determine if you are taking the correct actions and meeting the results you desire.  Pay attention to the actions that are getting the most results and double down on those, and eliminate the items that are not working.  This process can take some time, and it may be a year to two until you get into a system that is most effective for your organization to build a legacy program.