Some neat research for planned giving marketing.

The National Committee on Planned Giving* found:

• that most donors first make a will at age 44
• the average age of their first charitable bequest is 49
• 31% never revise their will
• and, among those folks that never revise their will, 75% never revise their charitable bequests
• among those who do revise their charitable bequests, most (90%) tend to increase the amount of the bequest.  The key here is to communicate and build relationships with your donors in order to increase the dollar amount of those gifts that are already heading your way.

Food for thought.  Marketing planned gifts isn’t easy.  And you surely do not have an endless budget to tap deep into your database.  So I’m not recommending you necessarily increase the number of newsletters you send out exponentially.  But this research is interesting food for thought.
Of course we recommend using innovative concepts to get prospective planned giving donors to “raise their hands”.  Then cultivate the relationships with personalized marketing and relationship-building.

*Source: National Committee on Planned Giving (2001) Planned Giving in the United States 2000: A Survey of Donors, National Committee on Planned Giving, Indianapolis. IN.