Planned giving: Overcoming board members’ skepticism
A message from the CICF Collaborative, including Central Indiana Community Foundation, Hamilton County Community Foundation, IMPACT Central Indiana, the Indianapolis Foundation, and Women’s Fund of Central Indiana
Jennifer Turner, CICF Vice President of Philanthropy
It’s understandable that a volunteer board of directors—with potentially limited experience in charitable giving—would find it daunting to encourage complex and legacy gifts from donors.
But it’s a strategy worth pursuing. This is especially true at present, given the changing tax laws and shifting donor behavior. Educate your board on the importance of a planned giving strategy to your organization’s future.
Against this backdrop, the CICF Collaborative stands ready to serve as a sounding board and partner. Here are a few ways we can help:
We’re happy to join a board meeting.
Our team would be happy to drop by one of your board meetings to deliver a brief, informal presentation. During our remarks, we will demystify planned giving and review its many benefits. Through tangible examples, such as gifts in a donor’s will or donations made through a retirement plan beneficiary designation, we’re able to help connect the dots from opaque legal concepts to concrete outcomes. Planned giving is also a great time to activate a significant gift from a long-time, consistent donor who might not have the capacity to make such a gift during their lifetime.
Reminding the board that planned giving is another tool in your nonprofit’s sustainability plan is a great opportunity!
We’re happy to share research and resources.
It can be hard to articulate the return on an investment in a planned giving program. Even though planned gifts don’t always result in immediate dollars, their long-term value is substantial, and that’s a key point the CICF Collaborative can clarify for your board members. We’ll also share research on planned giving trends, especially studies that illustrate how donors who make planned giving commitments tend to increase their annual giving.
We’re happy to serve as your planned giving back office when opportunities arise.
Your board may be concerned that your organization will receive a large, complex gift or bequest and won’t know what to do. Many board members are reassured to learn that the CICF Collaborative offers expertise, infrastructure, and administrative support needed to accept and steward complex charitable gifts. Furthermore, if your board of directors would like to allocate planned gifts, such as bequests, for instance, to an endowment, remember that we can professionally invest and manage endowment and reserve funds with a long-term perspective, ensuring prudent oversight, spending discipline, and transparent reporting. Planned gifts are excellent endowment-building gifts because you don’t know exactly when they will be realized, and they are one-time gifts, which makes them ideally suited to be invested to support long-term sustainability.
We’re happy to recommend educational resources and implementation tools.
The CICF Collaborative is happy to recommend resources that offer practical tools and talking points for board members to use when engaging prospective legacy donors. Even beyond engaging board members, our team can point you in the right direction for bequest language, checklists of types of planned gifts, and simple messaging that emphasizes legacy and impact (rather than legal or financial jargon). Knowing your organization has tools and resources often can make board members more comfortable with your organization undertaking planned giving as a priority.
The bottom line? When the going gets complex, we’re here to here to help! We look forward to hearing how we can assist with your planned giving program, whether you’ve recently launched a program, know you need to get a program started, or have a longstanding program that needs to be dusted off. By partnering with us, your board members can feel more confident in making planned giving a priority.
About the Author
Jennifer Turner has a passion for creating partnerships and connections within the community to create meaningful impact. As vice president of philanthropy at CICF, she helps support more than 1,300 families, companies, and not-for-profits design philanthropic plans that are both meaningful and impactful. With expertise in fundraising, capital campaigns, planned giving, and more, Jennifer helps organizations of all kinds maximize their missions and ensure their long-term sustainability.
About the CICF Collaborative
CICF Collaborative is a partnership of philanthropic organizations working together to strengthen communities across the region. Each entity within the CICF Collaborative (including the cornerstone entities, Central Indiana Community Foundation, Hamilton County Community Foundation, IMPACT Central Indiana, the Indianapolis Foundation, and Women’s Fund of Central Indiana) brings deep knowledge, strong relationships, and its own individual, focused mission. The CICF Collaborative unites the entities by providing shared services, allowing the entities to operate more efficiently and effectively. By leveraging what we each do best, we’re able to better serve our communities and create more lasting impact, together. Learn more »
