March 20, 2011 | Read Time: 1 minute
Too many charities create advertisements and other promotions for annuities and other planned gifts that stress the organization’s accomplishments rather than thinking about the donor’s needs and interests, said Michael Rosen, a Philadelphia fund-raising consultant.
“A donor-centered approach would say, Are you interested in supporting charity and having an income for life?”
He advocated that point of view in a new book that was honored this weekend with the top research prize at the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ annual meeting, in Chicago.
Mr. Rosen says his book, Donor-Centered Planned Gift Marketing, is a practical guide for fund raisers at all levels.
In an interview, he said that he wrote the book with the goal of increasing charitable donations, which have not grown beyond 2 percent of America’s gross domestic product for decades.
Because more than half of Americans die without wills, and only about 5 percent of people who do have wills leave anything to charity at their death, he said, bequests and other planned gifts offer the best chance to expand charitable giving.
“We have an opportunity to move the needle by having more organizations realize their planned-giving potential,” he says. “This can have a profound effect on society. This is the part that excites me about planned giving.”
Mr. Rosen says he also wanted to persuade fund raisers to stop thinking that marketing ends once a donor has agreed to include a charitable in his or her will.
“You need to continue to work with the donor,” he said. “It is the right thing to do, and many planned gifts are revocable. Very often, the donor will reward the organization that provides good stewardship with another gift.”
