Copywriting. for your. legacy. giving. website

Transcription

1 Copywritig Basics for your legacy givig website

2 You ve decided to tap ito the greatest trasfer of wealth that the world has ever see by buildig a LegacyGivig website. You re already ahead of hudreds of thousads of other orgaizatios out there. Take a momet, pat yourself o the back, ad the let s get dow to busiess

3 Here s how to write your website so you get a to of legacy gifts

4 The Psychology of Plaed Givig Whe oprofits ask for legacy gifts, two thigs happe*: 1 Avoidace. The door does ot wish to thik about their death. 2 Cotemplatio. The door thiks about symbolic immortality: how they will be remembered, how they would like to be remembered, ad about whether your orgaizatio s missio is aliged with their life ad values. Additioally, euroimagig of bequest doors shows that differet parts of their brais are activated tha whe makig regular philathropic gifts. I other words, acquirig plaed gifts is fudametally differet tha acquirig ormal gifts. How you motivate plaed gifts is differet, ad your etire site should be based o this research or you ll receive far fewer gifts tha you could have otherwise. * Russell James III, J.D., Ph. D., Texas Tech Uiversity

5 who is the Website for? Alegacy givig website is for the people who wat to make a gift without ivolvig you ad there are far more of them tha you thik. 80% of the people who make plaed gifts are people of average meas.* Most of them wo t call your orgaizatio or ever disclose their gift. Their gifts will ot ivolve complicated legal trusts. Your plaed givig website s job is to ispire doors to cotemplate their symbolic immortality ad give them what they eed to desigate their gift. That meas the iformatio ecessary for them to educate themselves o the type of gifts available to them, ad the tools to make bequests ad update their wills. You ll also wat to feature promiet get i touch ad/or ask a questio buttos to give the people who do wat your help a way to have their questios aswered. * Natioal Committee o Plaed Givig, Idiaapolis, IN

6 your biggest hurdle As a rule, most of your doors avoid thikig about their death. As a cosequece, most of them will have a hard time gettig started o their wills ad makig legacy gifts. Here s what that meas for you as you write your legacy givig website: Keep your toe positive! Make it about legacy, impact ad values, ot death. You eed to make it seem as easy as possible to make a plaed gift. Suggest leavig a charitable bequest to hoor a fried or family member. As you write your site, emphasize how easy it is for them to update or chage their will. Tell stories of other doors who have give gifts ad highlight how easy it was for those doors. Your mai goal is to get your doors to act o at least oe callto-actio; dowload a iformatio packet, or sample bequest laguage, or eve a plaig checklist. The they are o the path to makig a gift but you ll eed to lead them alog the path. Set up regular remiders with cultivatio marketig to drive them back to your site with a call-to-actio each time ad hopefully they ll ultimately leave your orgaizatio a gift

7 aswer the questios your doors are askig Most oprofits simply post iformatio about their plaed givig process o the web. It s mostly about the orgaizatio itself, ad about the legal ad tax miutia that ted to overwhelm ad cofuse potetial doors. Istead, put yourself i your door s shoes. What are they thikig about? What questios are they askig? If your plaed givig website aswers questios that oly you ad your staff are askig, you re i for disappoitig results. But if you help doors aswer the questios they are askig, the you re i for record-settig reveue. Here s how to get there

8 how to get to the tippig poit Doors are at your legacy givig site because they are iterested i learig more about plaig their estate ad may be iterested i leavig a plaed gift. So what s goig to take them from iterested i plaig their estate to icludig your orgaizatio as a beeficiary? The followig messages are prove to ease the fears of potetial plaed givers ad move them towards makig gifts: Show them that their gift to your orgaizatio will be a very wise ivestmet Emphasize the success of your orgaizatio doors wat to cotribute to a orgaizatio that s progressig towards fulfillig it s missio. They wat to back a wier! Show how their gift makes a real differece to other people ad to the commuity Share stories of livig doors that decided to leave a legacy gift. Show them why it s wise to have a pla (but do t try to scare them ito makig oe they ll walk away) Share the tax beefits of some kids of gifts (though this is the least importat elemet o this list)

9 What s Their Motivatio? Work the followig ideas ito your website copy. These are the primary emotioal motivators of people who leave plaed gifts: Leavig a legacy Helpig others Supportig their commuity Be remembered favorably Makig a differece Ispirig others Makig their family proud Hoorig a family member or fried The list of emotioal motivators above is more powerful, but the followig practical reasos ca also be icluded: So they ca receive aual fixed icome Security Beefit from deductios to curret taxes Gettig better rates ad better returs Beefittig others while helpig themselves Reducig gift estate taxes

10 be door- Cetric As strage at it souds, your website should ot be about your orgaizatio. Your site should be about your door, their legacy, ad their gift. Of course you ll talk about your orgaizatio, its missio, its legacy ad its impact. But if you make your site door-cetric by aswerig their questios ad givig them the tools they eed, you ll quickly have a successful program. As much as possible, focus your copy o how the door will beefit by makig a plaed gift. For example, use the headlie Icome For the Rest of Your Life istead of Charitable Gift Auity

11 Let Them choose Make it clear that the door ca desigate their gift. This makes it clear to the door that the gift is about them, their values, ad their legacy. Whe you provide sample bequest laguage, iclude copy that says somethig similar to, for the restricted purpose of. They are writig their legacy with their gift. Let them write it however they d like (withi reaso). The most fruitful thig you ca do is to suggest that the door cotact your orgaizatio to work out the details of a restricted bequest. That way a gift officer ca work through the details with them, ad you ll have the added beefit of discoverig may gifts that you might otherwise ot kow about

12 bous Desigig for Legacy Gifts What s the #1 desig pricipal whe buildig websites for legacy givig? Make sure your users ca read the site. They ll be older tha the average web user ad you eed to desig accordigly. Follow these guidelies ad you ll build a readable, usable site: Use a fot that s optimized for the web Size your fot larger tha you ormally would ad, if possible, allow users to cotrol the size of the fot Be very careful usig reverse type (light text o a dark backgroud) it s oe of the hardest thigs for older doors to read Make your calls-to-actio stad out with high-cotrast colors

13 Strategy + Creative + Techology = Results We re a door-cetric strategic marketig firm with digital iovatio at our core. We uderstad that 80% of a orgaizatio s reveue comes from less tha 20% of its doors or cliets, so we fish where the big fish are. Our uique, trail-blazig techologies ad marketig services help you raise more moey from the crucial 20%, efficietly deliverig uparalleled results. Get more major gifts for today ad more plaed gifts for tomorrow. Fid passioate doors i real time, ad close more major gifts faster. Major Giftmaker gives you a 360 view of idividual doors iterests, demographics, ad prefereces. Geerate more leads, cultivate more doors ad fid more legacy gifts. Idividual trackig reports show who is iterested i your orgaizatio ad why, so you ca egage ad build effective relatioships with potetial doors. Doors wat to give where they live. With Giftmaker Coect, you ca tap ito the power of smarter fudraisig by coectig the discoected ad empowerig your chapters or affiliates. Take the guesswork out of marketig by usig prove techology to rak, score, ad automatically urture leads with relevat, timely, persoalized messages. You ll maximize your gift disclosures by spedig your time with the most qualified ad iterested door prospects, ad lettig Legacy Giftmaker+ take care of the rest.