Legacy Fundraising: Lessons From Research

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Legacy Fundraising Lessons From Research

• Professor Adrian Sargeant
• Robert F Hartsook Professor of Fundraising
• asargean_at_iupui.edu

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Content

• Challenges
• Will Making
• Determinants of Bequest
• Determinants of Charitable Bequest
• Motives
• Pledger Research
• Bequest Communications
• Top 10 thoughts

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It is much to be regretted that testators who
have been blessed with fortunes, do not leave
more to charitable and public uses. Very little,
if any regret would be expressed by beneficiaries
under wills, if testators would set aside a few
hundred or a few thousand dollars for such
objects a fountain in ones native town, a
scholarship, a hospital, or a park or plot of
ground where the aged might rest, children play
and birds sing. Such gifts show noble natures and
all communities are proud to remember and honour
the donors
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Challenges
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Will Making
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Triggers For Making A Will

• Illness of the individual
• Death of a friend or relative
• Experience of sorting out estate of a relative
• Some form of family change
• Planning long distance travel
• The purchase of a house

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Barriers To Will Making

• A belief there will be no assets
• The absence of anyone obvious to leave anything
  to
• A feeling it was morbid to consider death
• The individual had not yet got around to it.
• Too much going on!
• Too difficult
• And anxiety
• Self esteem

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Determinants of Bequest

• 75 motivated in this way
• Depresses current spending by around 18
• Variations by age

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Who Gives??
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Percentage of Charitable Bequest Donors
Source (NCPG 2001)
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Who Gives

• Most successful planned giving organizations
  target middle-class donors
• While the average income among donors is
  75,000, 36 earn less than 50,000

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Robert F. Sharpe Jr (U.S.)

• No correlation between either income or wealth
  and the likelihood of giving by bequest
• The average bequest (Circa 30-40K) comes from
  the estate of a retired woman, who either has no
  living children or feels they have enough money
  of their own.

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(No Transcript)
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Pledger Research
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Will Making

• 87.8 of Supporters Made a Will

• 97.6 of pledgers have made a will

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Supporters

• 76.5 feel that asking for a bequest is OK
• Only 42.7 said they would notify
• 31.4 would want recognition

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Pledgers

• Mail
• Press Ads
• TV Ads
• Presentations to groups of supporters
• Promotion via solicitors
• Promotion by FAs
• Telephone/Personal Visit

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Triggers For Giving
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Table 6 How Donor First Learned About Gift
Options
Source NCPG (2001)
(Source NCPG 2001)
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Service Quality
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And lying pledgers
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But

• Why exactly do we want to know who has pledged?

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• Q If Ive left a gift to Oxfam in my will,
  should I tell you?
• A Yes its really helpful if you could let us
  know that you have included us in your will -
  that way we know that we neednt ask you again.
  We can also update you with aspects of Oxfams
  current work, and areas of work that are
  particularly interesting to you.
• You will find a form and pre-paid envelope in the
  pack for you to let us know your intentions - or
  you can just send us a brief note in the post.

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Legacy Comms
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From Richard Radcliffe Case For Support

• Past successes
• Key past events - milestones
• Future need
• Cost effectiveness
• Use of past legacies

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And From Psychology
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Key Concepts

• Temporal Distance How far into the future
• Mindset Present or future

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A Good Campaign?

• What the money will buy
• Talk about how the service will be delivered
• Your organizations vital need for funding
• Focus on what are likely to be the most immediate
  and pressing needs

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Key Concepts in Communication

• PRESENT
• Concrete
• Subordinate
• Contextualized
• Unstructured

• FUTURE
• Abstract
• Superodinate
• Decontextualized
• Structured

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But

• Dates are tied to the present mindset extents
  of time to the future
• Emotions discount faster than logic
• Negative outcomes discount faster than positive
  outcomes.
• In the future promotion works better than
  prevention.

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So..
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Top 10 Suggestions

• Make / Change A Will
• Ubiquitous coverage
• Celebration of large and small gifts
• Tax a motive?
• Pledgers spread across the database, but..
• Role of financial advisors will grow
• Promotion of social norms
• Remember abstract, superordinate,
  decontextualised and structured.
• Funding for a specific purpose future needs.
• Treat pledgers differently !

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Quick Quiz
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• Legacies are crucial to our income and help us to
  fund more research. You do not have to be rich to
  leave a legacy. Everyone who leaves a gift to the
  charity will be making a real difference to our
  work.

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• Making a will is your only guarantee that the
  proceeds of your estate will go to the people and
  causes that you care about.
• By remembering Cats Protection in your will you
  will be helping us to improve the lives of
  generations upon generations of cats and kittens.
• Every year, we rehome and reunite 55,500 cats and
  kittens across the UK and we would not be able to
  do this without the legacies left to us by kind
  cat-loving supporters.

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Thank You