Marketing Bequests: The Delicate Art of Asking for That Final Gift

Marketing Bequests: The
Delicate Art of Asking
for That Final Gift
 
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Before we get started »

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https://bloomerang.co/demo/video

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Our guest presenter »
Tom Ahern
@thattomahern
• professional copywriter
specializing in case statements
and direct mail
• author of four well-received
books on donor
communications, with two
more in the pipeline
• international speaker and
popular webinar presenter

© TOM AHERN 2018 !1
How to Market Bequests 
The delicate (but lucrative) art & science of asking
for that final gift 
☛ Tom Ahern sept2018

!2
How to DOUBLE your fundraising revenue
•Move 10% of your donors to monthly giving.
•Persuade about 3% of your donors to upgrade their
giving to the $500 level or higher.
•Get 5% of your donors to include you in their Wills.
Hilborn Charity eNEWS, via Future Fundraising Now, 2017
© TOM AHERN 2018

With prompting...
... about 2.5% of your donors
will add a charitable gift to
their wills. If you have 6,000
donors, that’s 150 bequests.
Agents of Good, 2018
Drooling yet?
© TOM AHERN 2018 3

Why this webinar isn’t called 
“how to market planned giving”

Bequests were the most common type of planned gift
based on the subsample (42%), followed by
unclassified gifts (22%), charitable gift annuities
(12%), and trusts and unitrusts (11%)....
Source: Study of 120 US universities, published Sept. 2016, The NonProfit Times
“Some say bequests
constitute at least 80% of so-
called planned gifts; others
say 90% or more…”
Designating a charity as
a beneficiary of your
IRA or life insurance is
also straightforward ...
and doesn’t require a
will.
Source: Mal Warwick

The market for these products is NOT
the same as the BEQUEST market.

Why bother?

!8
A. Which gives you the highest
Return on Investment (ROI)?  
 
[ ] Direct mail appeals 
[ ] Events 
[X] Gifts in wills (bequests) 
[ ] Major gifts fundraising
© TOM AHERN 2018
You spend $1, you
make how much?

Bequests’ return on investment?
The value of [charitable] legacies in the UK
is a staggering £2.4B each year. Legacy
Voice: “It’s sometimes hard to comprehend
the scale of such a big number.” Compared
to peer-to-peer fundraising? “[I]t will take
44 years and 1.75 million more runners to
raise the same amount.”
Bernard Ross, Jan. 2018, citing Legacy Voice

Comparisons of Lifetime Value
•LTV of a one-time donor (U lose $): $50/average?
•Gives same amount for 10 years (rare): $500
•Converts to $10/monthly gift for 10 years (takes
work): around $1,200
•Becomes a $1,000/annual donor: around $9,000
•Leaves a charitable bequest: $50,000 or more
Looking at LTV helps you prioritize your activities
and investments.
© TOM AHERN 2018 10

!11
Source: Pareto 2015
© TOM AHERN 2018

!12
“All but the biggest
major gifts are
chicken feed in
comparison to
legacies.”
Stephen Pidgeon, How to
Love Your Donors (to Death)
(2014)
© TOM AHERN 2018

!13
Dear Fundraiser/ED/board chair/leadership:
Had your predecessor 10 years ago fired
up a competent bequest marketing
program, today your organization
would be swimming in money.
© TOM AHERN 2018

The Grand Plan

It takes one extra letter annually.

!16
How to market bequests (minimum)
•Make a special LIST of anyone who’s given 3 times
or more to your wonderful charity.
•Create a Legacy Society (i.e., an “exclusive” group
to join and be honored by).
•Send this special LIST a single, additional, out of
the blue letter once a year, asking them ~ because
they’re such steadfast supporters ~ to consider
joining your Legacy Society by adding charity to
their Wills.
•Repeat forever? (PASS/FAIL question. If you can’t continue this simple
program year after year for at least 3 years, your bequest marketing program will likely
fail. Bequest marketing is a long-term investment.)
© TOM AHERN 2018

“Start small, start now. This is
much better than, ‘start big, start
later.’ One advantage is that you
don’t have to start perfect. You
can merely start.”
Seth Godin via The Agitator

Soon, too

Pre 1990
1991 to 1995
1996 to 2000
2001 to 2005
2006 to 2010
2011 to 2015
29%
43%
15%
7%
4%2%
WHAT are you waiting for ???? 
When did people leaving a gift to charity in 2015 write/
amend their wills? 
 
Source: Mark Phillips, Bluefrog
Bequests come in
quicker than you
might assume =
within 1-4 years.
19

Who? 
The rich are irrelevant. 
 
(Good to know. You can obsess about something
else now.)

!21
“The ASPCA asked this question
of its database: Who exactly
leaves us bequests? The answer:
donors who give often but not
very much.”
Kevin Schulman, DonorVoice webinar, Sept 2016
© TOM AHERN 2018

22
75% of charitable bequests
now come from monthly
donors. A bequest is 7
times more likely from a
monthly donor. 
 
Erica Waasdorp, The Sleeping Giant
© TOM AHERN 2018

Most of your legacy gifts will come from
your “minor” donors ... that 80% of the
file that tends to get ignored. 
 
~ Agents of Good, 2018

The strongest predictor of likelihood that
someone will make a charitable bequest:
childlessness
!25© TOM AHERN 2018
Source: Russell James III, 2014

!26
Start a legacy society.
© TOM AHERN 2018

“You can’t
thank them
when they’re
dead.”

!28
Editor: Sally Kirby Hartman
“Synthetic family”
© TOM AHERN 2018

What is “social proof”?
“Hey, look! People like
me do things like
that...”

This is social
proof.
!30
Look to your board first. 
 
Encourage ALL board members to
make bequests ... and publicize
these in your newsletter and other
publications. Source: Marts & Lundy.
© TOM AHERN 2018

BONUS! 
“I always find the best
way to get rid of a bad
board member is to ask
them for a legacy - they
usually resign on the
spot!”
Richard Radcliffe, 2018

The advantage of endowment? 
 
What can you give them? 
Well ... eternity of a sort

“Humans are driven by a will to
establish meaning in their lives.
They need purpose.” 
 
That’s your real job, in donor communications: 
to bestow purpose in exchange for support.
!33
Source: Neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, via the For Impact blog
© TOM AHERN 2018

How do we deal with the
existential challenge of
knowing we’re mortal?
We seek “symbolic
immortality.”
Dr. Claire Routley

© TOM AHERN 2018
!35
Oldest endowment? 
Est. by bequest 1249 at Oxford.

How many doctors?!? “In our e-newsletter we
used the wonderful example of
Florence Smith, the lady who has
helped 750 people become
physicians through her 1952
scholarship bequest. ”
Source: Sally Kirby Hartman, 2018

!37
“Leave a legacy” is about
perpetuating my values and my
beliefs and my primal desire to
matter ... at a price I can easily
afford, because I’ll be dead.
© TOM AHERN 2018
“A legacy is not a donation.
It’s an investment.” “Dr. Death,” Richard Radcliffe

What he saw in permanent endowment: “He liked
the fact that he will be
doing something good with
his money long after he is
gone.”
Source: Sally Kirby Hartman, 2015

!39
Of course, sell what you can
sell to your target audience
© TOM AHERN 2018

!40
Have an offer for info. 
 
(Because it’s a multi-step sale.)
© TOM AHERN 2018

A plain-spoken
information piece
people can
request. 
 
> NO jargon! 
> NO law-speak! 
> NO accountant-ese! 
> BIGGER type!
2011
2015
2017

!42
“Dr. Death,” mega-researcher Richard Radcliffe
© TOM AHERN 2018
A “Joy Brochure,” not
a “Death Brochure.”
A quick guide to the pleasure and promise of
charitable bequests.

!43
So, if 80-90% of
all “planned
gifts” are
bequests ...
why are they an
also-ran in this
typical list?
© TOM AHERN 2018

“Huh?”

All fundraising copy should
sound like someone talking. 
 
-- George Smith, Tiny Essentials of Writing for Fundraising

How do you start a miracle growing? 
You plant a gift in your will. 
 
 
"Medical miracles" in children's health care ... 
... those breathtaking advances that, when you first hear of
them, seem almost impossible to believe ... 
... can often be traced back to just two things: 
 
1. an idea in the right mind; and ... 
 
2. enough philanthropic investment to transform that wonderful
idea into a healing reality.

Key brochure messages

Step 1: Stop thinking of
them as dead people. 
 
“Leaving a legacy” is not about
my death. It’s about my life.

“Bequests are
life-driven, death
activated....”
Essential point from “Dr. Death,” Richard Radcliffe

In all Bluefrog’s private and public research
there is one key sentiment that comes through.
People don’t give more just because they can
afford it. They give more when they feel
rewarded by their philanthropy. 
 
Mark Phillips, Bluefrog, Feb 2016

“Let’s be outrageous, tacky,
tasteless, inspiring and mind-
changing and blow them out of their
chair, bed, garden, bar or toilet to
head to their professional adviser
screaming, ‘I can be part of this.’”
Richard Radcliffe, on legacy marketing; 101 Fundraising, May 2017

Repeat 
 and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and

Since the mid-1990s, Shiloh has averaged
$182,500 a year in estate gifts. In the same time,
we’ve averaged 4 to 5 estate gifts per year. [avg.:
about $40K per bequest] Marketing for estate
giving has primarily consisted of 3 mailers per year
plus promoting it in our newsletter.
Source: 2017 Tim Craig, Shiloh Christian Children’s Ranch

“Drip, drip, drip. Planned gifts are prompted by life
events – death, birth, marriage, health, travel,
retirement.” [People write or rewrite a will on such
occasions.] “That’s why it’s so important to have a
regular cadence of marketing messages. Because
you never know when the time might be right.”
!56
Source: 2012, Jeff Comfort, Georgetown; via Phyllis Freedman’s Planned Giving blog
© TOM AHERN 2018

Source: Canadian Legal Wills, 2014

Source: Tara Kelliher, Melbourne City Mission, July 2018
SOCIAL PROOF: What do other
people like me DO?

A bequest could be the most rewarding gift you
ever make.
A bequest could be the most satisfying gift you
ever make.
A gift in your Will could be the most thrilling
donation you ever make.

You don’t have to be rich to
make a meaningful charitable
bequest.
People want to give back. A legacy
gift is a fabulous way to do just
that.
This is social
proof.
This is social
proof.
This is social
proof.

You can be a FRIEND of the COLUMBIA GORGE forever!
Just add a gift to your will ... and join our popular
FOREVER GORGEOUS LEGACY SOCIETY.
In email
footers:

Recurring ads in
your newsletters
“Hero Shot”

Ads in your newsletters
This is social
proof.

On your
homepage:
“Hero Shot”

In social
media...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13g1ibb9NwM

Essential! 
 
One more time...

One more time: Send
your best prospects a
special letter every year,
warmly inviting them to
join the Legacy Society.

Opening: Thank your donor deeply ... humbly ... for
years of help. 
 
Middle: Put the Legacy Society offer in front of them,
without coyness. Ask for their consideration, not an
immediate action. “Next time you review....” 
 
End: Thank your donor some more. 
 
PS: Offer free information about charitable bequests.
My
simple
letter
formula

!71
In summary...
•Takes 1 letter annually.
•The money’s just sitting there.
•They already like/love you.
•Charitable bequests arrive fast!
•It’s a simple comms problem.
•Repetition is your friend.
•Life-driven. Death-activated.
•Easy way to double donations.
© TOM AHERN 2018

!72
My
free
how-to
e-newsletter…
www.aherncomm.com
I subscribe!
© TOM AHERN 2018
Celebrity cat: “Precious,” dressed by Ashley B.

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