What I'm thinking about/presenting on this year

I hope that 2022 is the year I can get back to engaging with my colleagues in person. I’ve gotten better at presenting on Zoom and other platforms, but anyone who knows me knows that I think best and connect with people best when I’m running around, waving my hands in the hair, maybe even jumping up and down a bit, while acting awkward and overenthusiastic. Low-key, I am not.

I'm also not going to discuss “three easy ways to jump-start your planned giving program.” I mean, I can do that, and I definitely can suggest the first three things you should do when starting a new program (and am always happy to present on that or hold a training). But while my goal is to always make sure attendees leave with several concrete, actionable steps they can implement immediately, this year I also hope to ask questions that challenge a lot of what we think we know about legacy giving and encourage my colleagues to think deeply about what we do and how we do it.

Here are some things I’m currently thinking about and will be presenting on in 2022 (not necessarily in order):

• Are assumptions (about who our best legacy prospects are; how we engage with them; and what we think they want) killing our legacy marketing or legacy giving programs?
• ?Is the trend of treating donors like consumers or customers bad for legacy giving and for fundraising in general?
• ?How does the intention/action behavior gap play out in charitable estate planning and legacy giving?
• Why don't we connect in memory and legacy giving more effectively here in the US?
• What is the real role of the charity and the gift officer in soliciting legacy gifts? Closing legacy gifts? Does our understanding of these roles change how we staff our teams?
• How can we come together to promote and normalize legacy giving in a way that benefits every charity, not just those with large marketing budgets?
• Is it time to sever legacy giving and planned giving once and for all?
• Or should we just get rid of labels (planned gifts, legacy gifts, major gifts) altogether?
• How does all of this impact how we spend our time and where we allocate our resources?

If any of that sounds interesting to you, or perhaps vaguely alarming, here’s where you can find me (and often my excellent colleague Sabrina Naylor) so far. I’ll update my schedule as we gratefully add more speaking events:

• March 10, 2022: Honolulu, Hawaii, Annual Conference on Gift Planning, Hawaii Gift Planning Council
• March 31, 2022: New York, NY, Planned Giving Day, Philanthropic Planning Group of Greater New York
• ?June 7, 2022: Silver Spring, MD, Planned Giving Days, National Capital Gift Planning Council ?
• September TBD, 2022: Tampa, Florida, Charitable Gift Planners of Tampa Bay
• More TBA

I’ll also be holding several smaller free group webinars/zoom calls to bring interested people together to dig into these questions in more depth. If you’re interested in attending something like that, drop me a line. ?

Note: I'm not selling or promoting any product, platform, or anything similar, nor will I tease information/knowledge that you'd have to pay me to access. We need less of that in our industry and more free sharing of information/knowledge/support. We all do better when everyone does better.