Upgrade a Program
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 see the cure!
Symptom
|
Solution
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| 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
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