ARTICLES AND REVIEWS

From Nonprofit Internet Strategies published 2005
Best Practices for Marketing, Communications, and Fundraising
by Ted Hart, James M. Greenfield and Michael Johnson
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Copyright 2005, page 234
(purchase through Amazon)

GETTING PLANNED GIFTS ONLINE: A QUICK CASE STUDY
Millikin University was founded in 1901 by James Millikin, a prominent Decatur businessman, and affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). It is located in Decatur, Illinois. Millikin University is a coed, independent university with a four-year program, offering studies in Arts & Sciences, Business, Fine Arts, and Nursing.
Millikin University has an active alumni office that tracks graduates and stays in touch with alumni and friends. Recently, the university added comprehensive information about planned giving to its Web site through the use of a content provider in California, Future Focus (www.futurefocus.net).
Anne-Marie Berk, director of Major Gifts at Millikin, wanted donor-oriented content to begin building the relationship fundamental with potential planned giving donors. Anne-Marie was pleasantly surprised when she received a phone call from an alumnus inquiring about a charitable gift annuity. Subsequent conversations revealed that this alumnus had found the Investment Giving section of the MU Web site and the information regarding planned giving and gift annuities. After reading the information and a donor story about a charitable gift annuity, the alumnus realized that he would benefit from writing a gift annuity with the university.
The alumnus had been a contributor to the annual fund at about the $250 level, but he had not been approached by the Alumni Office to make a planned gift. It was the available to all Investment Giving section on the MU Website that prompted a $25,000 gift.

CONCLUSION
The demographic studies, the anecdotal evidence, and available case studies, indicate that donors are using the Web and e-mail to research making larger gifts-whether they are major gifts or planned gifts. Older and younger donors are finding the Web a place to educate themselves about more significant ways to support the organizations they believe in. Therefore, nonprofits need to plan and execute thoughtful, interactive areas online that can inspire online donors to make planned and major gifts.
The future of planned and major gifts will still include tea and banana bread, but it's also going to embrace Web sites with online gift calculators, video stories, capital campaign support, major gift campaigns, and other uses of technology we haven't imagined yet. It's an exciting future, and one the author urges the nonprofit reader to explore.

From e-Fund News: December, 2004

Older Adults Are a Growing Internet Population

A recent survey by International Demographics, reported by ClickZ, shows that Americans aged 55 and older are becoming an increasing share of the online market. That study showed that 56.7% of adults 55-64 use the Internet regularly. That's not much lower than the 70.8% of 25-34 year olds, which is the peak of the usage curve. In the 65-74 age range, 35.9% are "regular" users. Even 15.9% of Americans 75 and older are regular users.

Robert Jordan, president of International Demographics, said that this older online market "continues to grow, and so will opportunities to market to that demographic in coming years." Memo to Mr. Jordan: There is already a great opportunity open to that demographic - the charities they have supported via direct mail for the last twenty years!

There are three great demographic myths that many nonprofits use to justify their under-investment in Internet marketing:

1. Older Americans, the primary donor group of most charities, are not using the Internet regularly;
2. Younger people, who use the Internet all the time, are lousy prospects for fundraising;
3. Younger people, when they get older, will somehow become direct mail responsive.

NPA has been regularly reporting on the fallacy of the first statement for years. Remember, today's seniors were teenagers when Lindberg flew across the Atlantic. As young adults, they invented the jet engine. Later, they created the atomic bomb. After they defeated Hitler and Tojo, they invented television. Before they retired, they put a man on the moon, and returned him safely to earth. OK, maybe they regret inventing television, but the point is, they aren't technophobes! And while they didn't invent the Internet (didn't Al Gore do that?) they use it to manage their portfolios, e-mail their grandkids, and buy the cheapest airline tickets to Florida. They're waiting to hear from you online... or from your competitors.

From MediaAudit: December, 2004

Older Age Groups Drive Internet Growth

According to a recent release by The Media Audit, though the younger age groups were the first to embrace the Internet, most of today's growth is being driven by the older age groups, starting at age 55.

In the markets surveyed, representing a population of more than 130 million adults, 61.2 percent of all adults visit the Internet regularly. "That's up from 54.9 percent in 2000 and most of the new growth is coming from those over 55 years of age," says Bob Jordan, president of International Demographics, Inc.

According to the data:

• the 55 to 64 age classification has increased as a percent of the total Internet audience from 9.5 to 11.3 percent in the past four years. The percentage of those in that same age group who access the Internet regularly increased from 45.8 percent in 2000 to 56.7 percent in 2003.
• the 65 to 74 year olds have increased as a percent of the total Internet audience from 4.6 to 5.4 percent. The percentage of those in that same age group who access the Internet regularly increased from 26.2 percent to 35.9 percent.
• those age 75 plus have increased as a percent of the Internet market from 1.3 to 1.6 percent The percent of the 75 plus group that is accessing the Internet has increased from 12.1 to 15.9.
• 55.6 percent of married, age 35 plus, households without children access the computer regularly. Among households with children the percentage that accesses the Internet regularly is 65.1 percent.
• income also has a significant impact on Internet access. Among households with annual incomes of $50,000 or more the Internet access rate is 78.6 percent compared to 61.3 percent among all adults.

From The Internet Fundraiser: May, 2001

Meeting Your Program Development Needs

Just as you should be disseminating information about your cause and mission, so should you provide information about your organizational needs. At a recent conference, a planned giving officer said there was simply no need to invest in promoting his planned giving programs on the Web because planned gifts are not made online. That same day, Dick Kellogg of Future Focus, http://www.futurefocus.net/index.htm, a company that provides unique custom planned giving content to NPO Web sites, told me about a public radio station in Oregon that received a $175,000 gift of appreciated stock after learning of the option on the Web site. That same organization has been included in the wills of three individuals who learned about the station's planned giving program on the Web as well.

Kellogg believes that "while some nonprofits have taken advantage of the Internet in planned giving marketing, many of those have not taken the time and made the effort to send an effective message. In numerous conversations with planned giving officers, I consistently hear something like 'It's not the tax considerations, it's the relationship and the heartfelt joy of giving that creates donations.' Yet it appears that most marketing efforts on the Internet are too fact, tax and definition oriented and contain too little of the emotional rewards a donor receives from supporting an organization the donor identifies with and intellectually supports."

Of course, the emotional and human side of planned giving will never be replaced by technology, but information seekers will look for what they want on the Web, and when they get there will act or react according to the effectiveness of the message.
Copyright (C) 2001, Changing Our World Inc reproduced with permission

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From e-fund News, March 15, 2001

Planned Giving Makes Strides Online

Think you can't get major gifts or bequests online? Think again. Oregon Public Broadcasting has had some significant results with a site they created a year ago with online planned giving expert Dick Kellogg (futurefocus.net). Here is Dick's report to us:

The site is www.endowopb.org. They set it up separately from the main site (www.opb.org) so that they could have a simple referral on air rather than "go to, hit this link, scroll down,,... etc." This site is a combination of my basic material and their material where we can show gifts that were directly given to OPB and talk, for example, about a restaurant that was well known to "the locals". I worked with them to create and design it so it is a custom site that is housed on their server.

When the site first went live, I believe they ran two months of on-air spots. That was about a year ago. They then stopped the spots but the traffic has remained fairly constant. Basically, the stats show they have 11 people a day, 7 days a week, reading their "brochure" on planned giving and Oregon Public Broadcasting.

They received a call in the first several weeks they were live from a young .com type exec who had appreciated stock and a tax problem. He had heard their ads, went to the site and saw the story and the material we have on the site concerning giving appreciated assets. That led to the $175,000 gift I referred to in the e-mail response you saw. The neat thing is that it came not only from someone they had no previous contact with but also someone "way outside our target market."

Since then they have had notification from four people of an intention to include OPB in their wills - all four were also previously unknown to them.
(c)2001 rickchrist.com reproduced with permission

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