Marketing a Planned Gift During a Recession
Donor Science Consulting released a very helpful report that analyzed a group of 72k charities to see what we could learn from the “great recession” of 2008.
Some highlights:
- Charities that successfully continued fundraising during the 2008 recession raised even more money than was the case in the 2007 tax year
- Charities who reduced their fundraising expenses in 2008 were 49% more likely to never receiving any more fundraising revenue again.
This is critical information for nonprofits considering what to do about next year’s marketing budget. From this study, it’s clear that a “marketing pause” is not the solution. It seems staying connected to your donors through the recession can make or break a nonprofit. You can’t pause your marketing and hope to recover.
But how can you continue marketing with all the budget cuts?
You might want to take it “in-house”—save money by doing it yourself. But between staffing changes and hiring freezes, you won’t have the internal resources to get it done consistently, so your donors will fall off.
But there is a way to:
- Guarantee donors stay connected to your organization.
- Inspire donors to contact you.
- Have more conversations that lead to a planned gift!
You probably think the solution would be too expensive, but I guarantee you, it saves your organization money.
The answer is to let us do it for you. We’ll give you an all-in-one marketing solution that guarantees your donors stay connected so you can reach your goals and get through the recession successfully.
And, we understand the budgetary concerns and can provide solutions at a fraction of the price of hiring an internal staff person to do it.
Your Complete Marketing Solution
A done-for-you, all-in-one solution that keeps your donors connected through email, direct mail, and your website. Nurture your donors through invitational marketing so you can have more conversations that lead to a planned gift.

Increase Interest in a Planned Gift
One of the easiest ways to increase interest in a planned gift is by tearing down fundraising "silos" and viewing a donor's giving behavior in a more comprehensive way. There's a misconception that a deferred gift doesn't benefit an organization today. Instead, the...

Here’s How You Know if Your Marketing Is Working
As a Planned Giving Fundraiser, you spend a lot of time and money using marketing to nurture prospects. How do you know it's working? Practical Solution Announcement JEFF: The beauty of digital communication right now is that there are a ton of metrics being generated...

Successful Donor Calls with Frontline Fundraisers
What is the most important thing to communicate during a donor call? Transcript: GREG: What we have found is that a specific deferred gift may not have come out of donor calls, but we get so much qualifying information! We've found as a frontline fundraising staff,...

PSA: Story Telling and Planned Giving Marketing
How to use stories to increase the rate of respond in your planned giving marketing. Transcript: JEFF: Just as a practical example. One of my favorite success stories is from a public college in PA. They were working to transition annual fund donors into planned...