What policies should we have about planned giving?

Summary:

Organizations and donors both need a framework; this item links to some examples.

Answer:

Someone asked in NONPROFIT (see http://www.rain.org/mailman/listinfo/nonprofit):
I am looking for samples of planned giving policies from other non-profit orgs. I realize these are agency-specific but would appreciate any drafts readers are willing to share.

Putnam Barber, editor of the Nonprofit FAQ, responded:
The phrase "planned giving" refers to various forms of philanthropy in which gifts often take place some time in the future, for example through a bequest to specified organizations included in the donor's will.

There is a broad range of types of planned gifts. Many of them involve quite complicated and technical arrangements that require specialized knowledge and considerable care to specify completely and correctly.

Because planned gifts often involve estate planning and the transfer of significant assets, there is an understandable chance of bad-feelings within the family of the donor if communications are not handled well. There are also, sadly, a few reports, but even a few is too many, of cases where advisors or development staff members have allowed personal or organizational goals to overweigh consideration for the donor's wishes.

For these reasons, planned giving programs require extra care and thought in the development of policies and procedures. Planned giving is more characteristic of large organizations than small ones, if only because larger organizations can more easily afford the trained staff and careful oversight that such a program requires. Larger organizations may also be in a better position to accomodate the fact that the timing of the receipts from planned giving is uncertain and there may be long delays between the development of the plans for a specific gift and the time when the organizations actually receives the intended support.

Some resources:

• There is a comprehensive introduction to the topic of planned giving on the website of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University: use this link.
  
  
• The "Planned Giving Policy and Procedure Guidelines" of WQLN, a television and radio station in Erie, Pennsylvania, are available online as a .pdf file.
  
  
• The Partnership for Planned Giving (http://www.ncpg.org) has suggestions for organizations thinking about initiating a planned giving program, including links to the local planned-giving councils that exist in many communities, in a guide at its website.
  

David Ross, President, Community Foundation for Oak Park, responded on August 27, 2003:
See http://www.vcnet.com/~cffop/funds.html for a description of
our Donor-Defined Funds, which implies planned giving.

Our general policy on these funds is at http://www.vcnet.com/~cffop/donordefined.pdf. We also have a
specific policy for each such fund. However, with the general
policy, a specific policy is often only a half-page or less.

We do not have a policy relating to structured donations, but
those are addressed at http://www.vcnet.com/~cffop/donations.html.