In honour of May being Leave a Legacy Month I thought this would be the perfect time to talk about prospect research and planned giving.   Leave a Legacy is a national, community-based public awareness campaign of The Canadian Association of Gift Planners (CAGP) that encourages people to leave a gift through their will or another planned giving vehicle to a charity or cause that is meaningful to them.

Prospect research can help your organization pin down which of your donors are more likely to become planned givers. When conducting planned giving prospect research we look at different factors than we would for major or annual giving. 

When identifying planned giving prospects the first step is to look at those who are loyal to your organization.  If donors have given to your organization for five or more consecutive years that is a good indication that they believe in your cause.  Along with past donations another great factor to look at is interactions with your organization – have they volunteered for your organization for a number of years or attended many events?  Are they a former board member?  If so they are also more likely leave a planned gift.

That said, if your organization focussed only on those who are loyal to your organization in either time or gifts to your cause you would be missing out on a lot of potential planned giving prospects.  Some of your best planned giving prospects could be donors making modest or irregular donations that are blending in to your donor pool.  To identify these potential donors statistical information to look at includes:

• Age: generally over the age of 60 or 65
• Marital Status: those that are single or widowed
• Family: those without children and/or grandchildren

Once you have narrowed your focus you can look at those donors in more detail.  Other great planned giving indicators include property ownership (home with mid to high property value), evidence of stock holdings, former business ownership and other high value assets (vacation home, collectibles such as artwork or vintage cars). 

It will take time to develop a planned giving program but using prospect research to identify and research potential planned giving prospects is a great first step.