Are You Prepared For Planned Gifts?

By Jennifer B. Furla, Senior Vice President

In a recent article in a publication for church leaders, the author told how a pastor missed the opportunity to significantly share in a member’s half-million-dollar estate by not acting on the member’s cues to her desire to make a planned gift.

The woman’s friend had died and the pastor announced how the friend had created a lasting legacy for the church with a gift through her will. The woman, surprised that the church accepted planned gifts, stopped pastor after church that day and said she’d like to talk about how she could do the same thing. The pastor made a mental note to call her, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to seem “unseemly” in bringing up the idea of a gift.

Not long after, the woman became ill and was hospitalized with a fast-spreading cancer. While the pastor visited her, he felt it was a bad time to sound like he was asking for money. A few days later, the woman died leaving the bulk of her $500,000 estate to her alma mater, a college she had not visited in more than 50 years. The church, which she attended regularly and loved dearly, did not share in her estate.

What did the church and the pastor learn? The church board learned the value of a legacy society. The pastor learned that while he was right in his sense that the hospital was not a good time to ask for money, it was OK to talk about end of life issues and to help the woman make sure her affairs were in order an reflected her values.

The lessons for you:

Planned Giving Is NOT Just for the ‘Big Guys’

Getting going on planned giving is a lot like embarking on any other major “lifestyle” change. You know you should do it, but it often ends up being put off “until tomorrow.” When asked if they have a planned giving program, groups respond:

“I WISH we did.”

“I know we SHOULD, but we haven’t had time to do it.”

Or

“We’d love to, but we don’t know where to get started.”

Nonprofit staff and volunteers, alike, tend to think that planned giving requires special capacity or expertise and is just for the “big guys.”

To be sure, there are plenty of planned giving vehicles and arrangements that do require special knowledge and expertise. We are not suggesting that each and every organization go out and start promoting CRUTs and CRATs and Charitable Family Limited Partnerships. And, we always recommend that the donor seek their own professional counsel on structuring and making a gift.

However, there are plenty of potential donors out there who care about your Mission for whom a straight bequest or residual gift in their will suits their estate planning purposes just fine. For these individuals, you are planting the seed that you do, in fact, accept planned gifts; how they will be put to good use; and you help provide the proper “language” for the donor to use in drafting or modifying his or her will.

A few years ago, the National Council on Planned Giving developed a program called Leave a Legacy™ that helped even the smaller and less sophisticated organizations establish and promote a planned giving program. The steps behind it were simple:

With upwards of $40 trillion passing from one generation to the next by the year 2040, you are missing the boat if you are not prepared to accept planned gifts and are not out there promoting planned gifts with every one of your donors.

Jennifer Furla was co-chairman of Kansas City’s nationally recognized Leave a Legacy™ program. To learn about planned giving within the framework of a capital or endowment campaign, and techniques on how you can jumpstart your organization’s planned giving efforts, call Jeffrey Byrne & Associates at 1-800-222-9233, or visit us on the web at www.jeffreybyrneandassociates.com.