So you have a program in place. But your agency's needs are growing,and there are more constituents to serve every day. You want to do more,raise more, approach more donors. The key to expanding is a quick analysis of your agency and your program to try to determine why the program is not as successful as you think it should be. If you see your symptom below, just check the diagnosis to discover the cure!
Symptom
Solution
Not receiving enough planned gifts.
More direct marketing impressions
More appointments with prime prospects
Better techniques when closing
Unease on the part of prospects about your ability to handle the gift: prospects keep making comments about your organization that are hard to understand
Donors don’t think you can handle the money.
Don’t think the restrictions will really be
honored.
Don’t understand the real purpose of the gift
you are asking for.
Policies and procedures need to be fine-tuned.
Lack of volunteer support keeps the number of calls on prospects too low
You need more volunteers.
Volunteers need better training.
You need to focus your volunteers better
Not enough appointments with prospective donors
Identify more prospects to call on personally.
Beef up direct marketing efforts so prospects will self-identify
Make more calls yourself.
Get senior management to make calls
You don’t have enough money to carry out the planned giving program adequately
Management and Board do not understand your plan.
You don’t understand your plan.
You don’t have a plan
You have enough appointments but are not able to close gifts
Gift opportunities are not well-defined.
Prospects need to understand the organization ’s
overall mission, programs and current initiatives.
You, your management, volunteers and board need more training in planned giving techniques.
There’s so much going on it’s hard to keep everything under control.
CONGRATULATIONS. This is the problem you want to have!
You need timelines and budgets for the entire planned giving program
You need to design a tracking system for work
with specific prospects
