International research into bequest marketing

Howard Lake | 16 January 2003 | News

Natasha van Bentum, CFRE, Director of Gift Planning for Greenpeace Canada, has received a research grant to explore effective bequest marketing.

Supported by a research grant from the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), Ms van Bentum’s project is titled “Exploring Earliest Bequest Marketing & Sharing Results with Contemporary Practitioners”.

Her research will go back to the sixteenth century to cover the history of effective bequest marketing. The results of her research will be published online in the form of a a practical guide for gift planners, detailing examples of best practice bequest marketing.

You can have your bequest/legacy fundraising materials considered for inclusion if you wish. Ms. Van Bentum is asking for samples from Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Although the research project is international in scope, Ms Van Bentum will be focusing on common-law countries.

She is especially interested in early examples of good bequest marketing documents. One sample already received is an advertisement from the Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto in their 1882 annual report asking for bequests of a minimum of $2,000. Ms Van Bentum told the National Committee on Planned Giving that it was “rather bold -in today’s dollars like stating point blank you are only interested in bequests starting at $50,000.”

To submit a bequest marketing sample, contact Natasha Van Bentum.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.