# Fundraisers slow to ask for bequests

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2007/09/12/fundraisers-slow-ask-bequests/
- Published: 2007-09-12T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

The reluctance to discuss planned giving and particularly bequests may be due more
to the attitude of fundraisers than donors, a seminar on planned giving has heard.‘
Planned Giving:Challenges and Approaches for Environmental Organisations and Museums’
was held in Belfast and attended by a range of organisations in the cultural and
community sector.
The seminar was organised by the European Association of Planned
Giving and hosted by the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Cultra. Jan Jennings
of Boston based Viking Consulting led the seminar and shared her experience of working
both in the United States and Britain.

Jan said fundraisers need to have more confidence in their cause and in her experience
donors are more open to discussing sensitive issues related to planned giving and
bequests than fundraisers think. Jan said ‘recognition societies’ of people who 
had committed to the organisation were popular in the United States.

The best prospects for membership organisations are those people who give over time
and recency of donations is less important in indentifying bequest prospects, according
to Jan. US statistics show that 8% of the ‚€295 billion donated to charity each 
year comes from bequests.

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On a practical level, Jan suggested that organisations should use all their marketing
materials to promote planned giving. She also recommended sending legacy material
with all donor ‘thank yous.’

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