Our Story

In 2007 MarketSmart’s founder, Greg Warner, received a newsletter from one of his beloved charities, which seemingly sought to generate leads for its planned giving department. Since he initially took a dim view of the impersonal mass-marketing approach the organization had used, he decided to call them to see if the effort was working well.

It was not.

Feeling a duty to offer assistance, Greg sought to improve the effectiveness of the charity’s lead generation and cultivation efforts with a fresh MarketSmart strategy. After implementing MarketSmart’s plan, the organization generated more highly qualified, robust leads—and found more gifts—than it had previously uncovered in any single marketing campaign, ever.

The Director of Individual Giving credited MarketSmart, writing: “From virtually non-existent leads, we have had correspondence with hundreds [and now thousands] of individuals requesting estate planning information or stating they have left a bequest to [our organization]. We are very fortunate to have employed the strategic marketing services of MarketSmart.”

After the success of that initial campaign, Greg recognized that the greatest transfer of wealth in U.S. history was imminent and decided to act. He realized that by combining his firm’s understanding of high technology with savvy marketing strategies and superior sales skills, MarketSmart could help non-profit organizations increase the pace and scale of their planned giving efforts.

He had spent many years working with private companies and non-profits to generate leads, sell products and services, increase attendance at meetings and grow membership, but now felt compelled by a greater calling: To help direct more planned gifts to charities that truly need additional funding in order to serve humanity.

From that point on Greg began to offer his cutting-edge, technology-oriented strategy to other planned giving programs to bolster their efforts. SmartGiftmaker® is his way of helping great organizations secure their own futures while benefitting generations to come.