PGgrowth - Planned Giving podcast Ed Sluga, CFRE

In this second pod focusing on our webinar series Driving PG Forward from the Fall of 2023, Ken Ramsay - noted planned giving expert and data guru - gives one of the best arguments for understanding your organization's data and planned giving opportunity I have ever heard – and I have heard Ken talk about this many times before. 

It is all about the gap. 

The gap is the space between your current planned giving successes and your planned giving potential. Until you take the time to understand the true revenue potential that is within your stakeholder base, it will be difficult for your organization to chart the necessary path to maximize success. It is a fundamental next step after determining the characteristics of the type of program you should be operating. It will help drive your program forward.

The first of four pods excerpted from our webinar series in the Fall of 2023 titled DRIVING PLANNED GIVING FORWARD. This episode looks at determining organization type and what best practices are the correct ones to implement and follow. What does your organization need to consider when establishing a program? How do you measure success? It is where an organization must start to ensure predictable and sustainable planned giving growth and success.

In May of 2020, with the pandemic officially taking hold of all of our daily lives, PGgrowth held a Town Hall to examine fundraising in the ear of lock downs and economic unknowns. Now, 3 years later, we look at the after-effects of COVID, lessons learned - or not - and what to do so that your program is ready for the next economic down turn, whether it is caused by a pandemic, a bad economy or some other un-expected factors.

Working with charities across the country, we do find one common thread when professionals discuss their ability to - or inability to - launch a truly proactive program: leadership commitment. While the rational and the data continues to support proactive engagement of supporters to increase giving in the way, organizations continue to hesitate, missing the important leadership imperative to launch a program. In the end, this hesitation is simply a decision to 'leave money on the table'. In this discussion we hear from Doug Earle, current CEO of the West Park Hospital Foundation (Toronto) and former CEO of Fighting Blindness Canada about the leadership decisions and steps he took to launch a program and position his organization in transformational success in the area of fundraising.

This one is from the archives and firmly focused on the future. My colleague Katherine Blake is regularly talking about the coming transfer of wealth - one that we know of well in planned giving - and the fact that charities need to get involved now in planned giving or risk missing the opportunity. This reminded me of a conversation I had with Ken Ramsay a few years back. It was about the charitable giving circumstances of the time and how they had made that an important time for charities to launch a planned giving programs to ensure their future financial security. Everything old is new again and planned giving - accelerated by the pandemic - is entering another 'Golden Era'. For more Planned Giving Podcasts and to sign up for our regular updates, please go to www.pggrowth.com

Many experts in planned giving might say that it all begins and ends with donor stewardship. My guest on this episode of The PGgrowth Planned Giving Podcast - Peggy Killeen - is one of those experts. And her passion for stewardship and how it leads to gifts of this kind is unmatched - and so is her knowledge. Listen and learn that for some, it is all about stewardship.