Lorri Greif

Heartfelt Donors Are Key in Tough Economic Times

Do you want the good news? Or the bad news? Well fortunately, the good news and the bad news are the same in this case. Thanks to good old American generosity, and the extra hard work of nonprofit fundraisers, 2008 can lay claim to gifts and pledges of $3... Read >

Public Good IRA Rollover Act of 2009

Just to refresh everyone's memory, in August 2006, then President Bush signed the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA 2006), which gave individuals at least 70 1/2 years old the opportunity to make a charitable gift of up to $100,000 a year in 2006 and 20... Read >

The Best Time to Start Planned Giving

As you may have already learned from reading my articles or past issues of my newsletter, I am absolutely passionate about planned giving. With two decades of fundraising behind me, there is no doubt in my mind that without planned giving, a nonprofit's a... Read >

Basic Bequest Campaigns

Fundraising campaigns don't have to be tricky and overly complicated. For those of you with a dormant planned giving program, a basic bequest campaign is a terrific way to attract much-needed attention. If you're not sure where or how to begin a bequest c... Read >

Planned Giving and the Individual Giver

If your nonprofit is primarily funded with gifts from people as opposed to institutions or the government, you are in better shape than you may think because you're getting what I call "heartfelt" gifts. Institutionalized giving and government budgets mus... Read >

The Case For Planned Giving

Often professionals understand the need for planned giving, but meet resistance from board members who are unsure about how it works or its benefits to the organization. I cannot emphasize enough how important the support of your board members is to reach... Read >

Estate Planning - Who's Doing it?

Have you noticed all of the new research data and information available about planned giving lately? What I find most interesting is younger people, even in their 30s, are less resistant to include a charity in their estate planning than people in their s... Read >

Where's Your Planned Giving Plan?

As development professionals, we know it's important to research and plan the actions necessary for a successful campaign. For example, with capital campaigns, I think it's widely understood that the process usually starts with board consensus regarding t... Read >

WHAT TO DO WHEN NOTIFIED OF A BEQUEST

With all the trainings that go on about the many different ways to make a planned gift, the fact is approximately 75% of all planned gifts are made through bequests. Most often when bequests mature the charitable beneficiaries find out about it when they ... Read >

OVERLY DEMANDING DONORS – some sage advice

It's a thin line that development professionals walk when establishing comfortable limits in interactions with donors and prospects - even as we try to get them to tell us everything and anything about themselves. We know that learning more about donors ... Read >