20-Question-FINAL-2016-r2

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Which kind of household is most likely
to leave a bequest to charity?
Answer: Middle class
NOTES AND ASSUMPTIONS…
The following bit of vital research appears on page 80 of Iceberg Philanthropy. It’s
part of the profile of “Jacqueline,” the “average” North American donor discussed
in great detail and depth by this remarkable (yet underappreciated) book.
“Jacqueline is typical of those donors who send your organization $35 cheques
through the mail. She’s the classic ordinary donor…. Your major gift officer pays no
attention to donors like Jacqueline. Nor does your planned giving officer.” 10
The fact that Jacqueline remains invisible to most nonprofit organizations, even
though “she might well have been giving to you consistently for 10 or 20 years,”
means, as Iceberg Philanthropy hammers home, that you’re probably ignoring most
of your best prospects for a bequest.
As Good Works, a fundraising consultancy in Canada, notes, “Legacy marketing
... is about getting a small number of very large gifts from your ‘average’ donors. These
are the donors who aren’t on your radar screen already, who aren’t interested in tea
and banana bread with a planned giving officer, but who are very loyal to your cause.”
The truth is, you already know who your best bequest prospects are. They’re
the donors in your database who give to you faithfully. They’re the donors in your
database who give you larger than average gifts each year.
You just have to surmount one simple communications obstacle. Asked
why they hadn’t yet put a gift in their wills, donors will commonly say, “It didn’t
occur to me to do so.”
Make sure it occurs to them. Legacy marketing specialist, Richard Radcliffe, says
the best, basic approach is to mail your bequest prospects a brief letter once a year,
reminding them that can make a spectacular difference by adding a gift in their will.
10 p77, Iceberg Philanthropy: Unlocking Extraordinary Gifts from Ordinary Donors; Fraser Green,
Ruth McDonald, Jose van Herpt; 2007, The FLA Group
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20 Questions RE Donor Communications © Tom Ahern, 2016