Much of the research into planned giving has been dedicated to donor attitudes. How many individuals create a gift each year? What percentage of Canadians give this kind of a gift? What makes a donor care enough about an organization to create a gift of this kind?
These are all useful facts, and the research helps to focus an organization (should they actually be operating a planned giving program) on how they should market their programs and to whom.
Interestingly, over the nearly four decades that this kind of research has been conducted and published, the actual numbers and other important facts have not really changed. The reason people give and the numbers of those willing to give have stayed relatively the same. (For anyone who wants to dig into the research, feel free to reach out and I can link you to the data that dates back to the early 80s. In 2015, PGgrowth also produced a report on donor attitudes, authored by Richard Radcliffe.)
What about engagement?
In 2017, PGgrowth decided to look at this from a different perspective. We did a national research study that focused on what charities were doing to engage with the donor opportunity that previous research highlighted.
The findings were interesting. At the same time that donor attitudes, and the opportunity they presented, were shown as an incredible opportunity for charities, the efforts of organizations in engagement of prospects was decreasing in terms of allocated resources.
What was also demonstrated was that organizations not investing in planned giving had a significant imbalance of the amount of planned giving revenue being realized. Simply put, the percentage of fundraised dollars from planned gifts was not in proper ratio in relation to the other two programs of fundraising – annual giving and major giving.
It revealed that those organizations that invested in planned giving prospect engagement were realizing dollars. By presenting themselves as positive and trustworthy options for legacy gifts, they succeeded in demonstrating that a significant portion of their annual fundraised revenue could come from planned gifts.
This becomes more relevant considering we are seeing increased donor fatigue, a decrease in people reporting receipted donations and find our sector relying more on fewer donors.
It was always our intention to extend this research to look for trends and provide benchmarks for the sector from an organizational perspective. We have begun gathering updated data that will allow us to better understand what charities from the various areas of the sector are doing – or not doing – to benefit from planned gifts. We need your help!
We would appreciate it if you would click on the link and fill out our survey.
It will take only a few minutes to complete and your responses will be held in the strictest confidence.
Your support will go a long way to helping the sector better understand where it stands on the planned giving front.
Ed Sluga, CFRE is one of Canada’s most experienced planned giving professionals and is also co-founder of PGgrowth. Ed is a noted speaker, the co-author with Peter Barrow of Worthy and Prepared, host of the PGgrowth Planned Giving Podcast, Professor of Major Giving and Planned Giving with the Humber College Fundraising Management Program and a regular presenter of the AFP Fundraising Fundamentals Course. Contact him, ed@pggrowth.com
