August 2024 Nonprofit News: Make-a-Will MonthIn a pinch? Three Make-A-Will Month messages you can use right now
As you implement strategies to attract legacy gifts, it’s critical to regularly encourage donors to check their estate plans to be sure they’ve incorporated their intended bequests. Now is an especially good time to get the word out because August is national Make-A-Will Month.
Here are three cut-and-paste messages you can use in your communications with donors, whether those are broad communications such as website pages or one-on-one emails to particular donors.
Money, mortality, and family relationships can be tough for anyone to address head on, and when you combine them, it’s no wonder so many people put off setting up or updating their estate plans. Don’t delay! Reviewing your wills, trusts, and beneficiary designations not only gives you peace of mind, but also lets you explore ways to include a bequest to ABC Charity. Please reach out. We’d love to work with you and your advisors to establish a legacy that will benefit the community for years to come. We’re so grateful for everything you do to help [ABC Charity]’s mission stay strong.
As you work with your attorney and other advisors, be sure to review the beneficiary designations on your insurance policies and retirement plans. Pay close attention to tax-deferred retirement plans such as 401(k)s and IRAs. Typically, you’ll name your spouse as the primary beneficiary of these accounts to provide income following your death and to comply with legal requirements. But as you and your advisors evaluate whom to name as a secondary beneficiary of these tax-deferred accounts, don’t automatically default to naming your children or your revocable trust. You and your advisors may determine that naming ABC Charity is the most tax-efficient, streamlined way to establish a philanthropic legacy. A bequest like this avoids not only estate tax, but also income tax on the retirement plan distributions. Reach out to learn more!
We’ve all heard stories about the sad consequences of someone not having an estate plan, or even having out-of-date beneficiary designations. Estate planning documents, including wills, trusts, and beneficiary designations, often represent generous acts of clear distribution and conflict avoidance for your family and loved ones. An estate plan allows you to demonstrate how much you care about the people in your life as well as your charitable passions. We’d love to work with you and your advisors to include ABC Charity in your estate plan.
As always, please reach out to the team at ACF! We are here to help. We appreciate the opportunity to work with organizations like yours that are making such a big difference in the quality of life in our community.
Friends and family: Sustainable funding thrives on relationships
“You can’t make old friends” isn’t just the title of a Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton duet; it’s an important reminder that long-term relationships are the key to successful fundraising and sustainable funding. That’s common sense, of course, but sometimes it’s hard to put this principle into action.
There are no silver bullets or magic tricks or secret sauces to make donor relationships grow faster, but it might help to understand how your donors’ emotions factor into decision-making about when–and to what extent–they will make a financial commitment.
Along those lines, the team at the community foundation really enjoyed a recent article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review offering suggestions for ways to approach philanthropy so that it is “relational,” including thinking in terms of “we” instead of “us” or “them” and moving away from hierarchical models achieving impact.
As you update your development plans, consider three ideas inspired by principles of relational philanthropy.
Focus on donor loyalty and trust
Keep an eye toward creating long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with donors. Trust fosters donor loyalty, encouraging recurring and more substantial contributions over time, which is crucial to ultimately securing an endowment gift. To achieve this, you need to understand what benefits the donor is seeking by supporting your organization. Is it recognition? The knowledge that they’re part of something bigger than themselves? Confidence that a problem they’ve personally wrestled with will be solved for others? The donor’s perspective matters.
Inspire donor advocacy
It’s one thing for donors to feel personally connected to your organization. It’s an entirely bigger thing for them to become advocates. When a donor is so dedicated to your mission that they actively encourage their friends and family to also support your organization, you know you’ve got a friend for life. Asking this type of donor for a commitment to your endowment is likely to achieve a high rate of success. Pay close attention to which donors are regularly referring new donors to your organization, whether by offering up prospect names directly or inviting prospects to join the donor’s table at your organization’s annual event.
Know your audience
Large-scale communications platforms such as email campaigns, social media, and your website are important tools in all fundraising activities, including securing endowment gifts. Make sure to layer in highly personal outreach to your donors, in addition to general messaging. One-by-one communication across channels allows you to demonstrate your organization’s understanding of donors’ individual preferences for their involvement.
As always, please reach out to the community foundation anytime you have questions about best practices in fundraising. We look forward to continuing to work side-by-side to improve the quality of life in our community through the power of philanthropy.
2024 Arlington living wage data highlights ongoing displacement risks of essential workers
With the release of the 2024 Arlington poverty and living wages data, we’re reminded once again how much work there is to be done to ensure that everyone has the opportunities and support to call Arlington home.
As you’ll see in this new video (also on Facebook and Instagram), an Arlington worker with a partner watching two children at home must make at least $47.44/hour with full-time hours to survive here. For many of our essential workers, that’s more than double their hourly earnings (and most are not full-time).
In many cases, even as low-income workers increase their wages, they end up making less overall (watch the Benefits Cliff video to see why). These workers, these families, and so many others, are essential to Arlington, and it is essential they are able to live and thrive here. We are proud to partner with so many local nonprofits in the continued fight for deeper affordability in Arlington!
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This newsletter is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended as legal, accounting, or financial planning advice.