January 7, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute
Many charities have stepped up their efforts to seek bequests, largely because it’s one way to overcome donors’ reluctance to make big cash gifts when the economy is still soft and people fear outliving their assets.
Now two direct-marketing experts, Deborah Block and Paul Karps, highlight a new twist in bequest seeking by the Natural Resources Defense Council in Mal Warwick’s Newsletter for nonprofit direct marketers.
In a November mailing, the environmental group told donors that a trustee will match any new bequest, dollar for dollar, up to $1-million. The trustee will pay the matching portion immediately, even though the organization may not get any money from the bequest for years.
Such an offer is “something, quite frankly, we’ve never seen before,” Ms. Block and Mr. Karps write. Matching gifts are common, they add, but using them to spur bequests in this way is not.
Donors can use a response slip in the mailing to tell the council that they have already included the organization in their estate plans and they want to qualify for the match — or they want more information.
Donors are also asked to provide a telephone number or e-mail address—but they are not asked to provide or estimate the amount the council will receive in their wills.
That means someone from the organization must contact each donor who responds; otherwise, they will not know the amount of the matching gift. Such contacts, they add, gives the “clever folks at NRDC” the chance to build stronger relations with donors — and larger gifts.
