Legacy Giving Recognition Levels



How many recognition levels is one of those tricky questions that we are revisiting right now.  Too many levels and no one takes them seriously.  Too few and you discourage increased giving.  Too low or too high causes a different set of problems and it is very difficult to recognize a donor at a level and then change the requirements.  Do you unrecognize them if they don't meet the new rules?  I don't think so.  So, its rather important to start off right.

Currently we recognize you at the following levels for a current or deferred gift to the endowment...

$1,000 and you are a member of The Legacy Society

$250,000 and you are a member of The Tocqueville Legacy Circle (and The Legacy Society)

$1,000,000+ and you've joined the Million Dollar Legacy Circle (and TLC and LS)

 

We didn't think that was enough so we're adding some new ones...

 

$1,000 = The Legacy Society

$25,000 = The Leadership Legacy Circle

$125,000 = The Builders Legacy Circle

$250,000 = The Tocqueville Legacy Circle

$500,000 = The ? Legacy Circle

$1,000,000 = The Million Dollar Legacy Circle

Assuming a 4% return and draw, $25,000 endows an annual gift of $1,000 (our base annual campaign leadership level gift), $125,000 yields $5,000 annually (our Builders Society annual giving level), and $500,000  ... well we really haven't come up with a good justification for that level, hence the problem with coming up with a good name.  Any ideas will earn you my undying appreciation and all the recognition, accolades, and cash prizes I give for every other good idea.  Best of all, if we compile a list of good recognition level names here, then everyone can just appropriate them for their Legacy Society.  Retreading at its finest.



Recognizing Legacy Society Members

How to recognize your Legacy Society members is one of those tough challenges.  People don't like you to spend money, but you want to recognize your donors as an example for others. After a good deal of experimentation (and some 1st rate failures) we have come up with a few ideas that have worked for us.  If you click on the name of the first 2 items, it will open the PDF in a new window from Google Drive. 

The Legacy Society Listing recognizes all of our donors who have given $1,000 or more to the endowment.  We take this listing on all calls to prospects and you'd be amazed how they will look through the names and find other people they know.    We produce this in house on 11x17 paper.  Our graphics guru uses one of his many programs and if you want to know more, I'll ask him which one.  The only cost for us are the color copies.

 

 

A Brochure Insert is very flexible and we produce these in house using Publisher.  You can swap them out to fit the prospect you are visiting.  We are trying to build a library of these inserts with a variety of different donor stories.  I've never had a donor tell me we couldn't tell their story.

 

  

Finally, this is a 4 foot by 3 foot foam board listing the names of our Million Dollar Legacy Circle and Tocqueville Legacy Circle.  We put it on an easel in a prominent place during events, dinners, etc.  The names of the donors who have joined in the last year are underlined so they stand out.  Any number of donors will look to see who they know and we always have a Champion standing nearby to talk about how they can join TLC or MDC.  We outsource this project and I seem to remember that it cost $100 to produce, but we use it all year.  If someone new joins during the year, we add a well crafted Post-It Note in the margins with an error pointing to where their name will go on next year's board.

Insurance Policies in a Nutshell

Life Insurance Policies make up approximately 1/3 of the total gifts to our Endowment.  With over 100 policies, they can be both a blessing and a pain.  As a planned giving vehicle, a life insurance policy offers an tool for leveraging donor dollars.  However, underwriting, annual monitoring, and the accounting challenges can make them a very time consuming challenge for even the largest United Ways. 

You will find a 1 page overview of our governing policies for gifts of insurance by clicking HERE.  As always, I upload the documents to Google Drive and access is limited, so it's safe. 

Finally, if you are considering adding insurance policies as a planned giving option, seriously consider United Way Life. 

Our Brochure

You can find a PDF of our brochure by clicking UWCA Legacy Gifts Brochure.  We put this brochure together with the idea of creating a piece that would remain relevant to our overall messaging for several years and focus on Legacy Giving as the next step in your United Way giving.  We wanted our focus to be on contributing to the next generations so that you will always be giving to United Way.  Ask our long time donors to consider endowing their annual gift has been a message that has worked well for us. 

The brochure was composed by our volunteers on the Legacy Cabinet and produced locally.  We wanted to limit the talk about different PG vehicles and instead focus on Legacy donors and why they choose to give to the endowment.  If you have a brochure I can share with others, please send me a PDF copy so I can post it.  As always you will receive all the credit, honors, and financial gains!

Gift Acceptance Policies

None of us should have to create policies out of thin air since there are so many excellent examples out there to retread.  Last year, a group of us from Resource Development and Finance got together to rewrite our Gift Acceptance Policies (GAP's).

The process went smoothly.

1. Individually we reviewed the old GAP's and marked everything we thought needed to be changed, deleted, or added.
2. We reviewed several examples from other United Ways.
3. We searched the web for good examples from other sources not UW affiliated
4. We took the best ideas from everyone else
5. We wrote the new policies.
6. Currently they are going through the review process with the Board committees

You will find a PDF of the final draft by clicking HERE! (By the way, I upload these documents to Google Drive and I am told this makes them safe from viruses or other infections that drive our IT guys crazy!).

We borrowed heavily from our good friends at United Way of Greater Atlanta and Bentley Marane.  They have great GAP's.  We also found the GAP's from LSU to be quite good.  If you want a list of all the different examples we used, drop me an email.

UWCA Forms

These are a couple of the donor templates we are using currently.  Believe me they change frequently, so we try to keep them flexible.  I'm uploading PDFs for space reasons and because I can link to them on Google Drive.  If you want the MS Office files, email me. 

If you click on the form name below, it should take you to the PDF on Google Drive.

Donor Agreement for Insurance Policies.  One of the things we learned on this form was not to refer to it as a Donor Agreement Form, because if you abbreviate the name, you get DAF which is also a Donor Advised Fund and the accountants complain.

TLC Commitment.  Our objective here was to keep things as simple as possible.  It has worked well and donors are more likely to give us the details we need if there is not alot of other information that needs to be filled out.

I am ALWAYS looking for better forms, so send me yours.

David