If you associate estate planning, writing wills, and marketing your planned giving program with people in their 60s and 70s, you might be way off course.
The Des Moines, IA, based Stelter Company, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, specializes in helping nonprofits develop planned giving marketing programs. Research the company recently did turned up some counter-intuitive data about planned giving.
It turns out that younger people are more open to planned giving than older ones. Here's what the research showed:
- People in their 30s are open to the idea of estate giving, but haven't been approached or asked by nonprofits.
- People in their 40s are the most receptive to estate giving and are inclined to make their wills at a much younger age than previous generations.
- People in their 50s have been the hardest hit by the recent poor economy and are only lukewarm when it comes to estate planning.
- People in their 60s are the most knowledgeable about planned giving, but they are not that much more interested in it.
- People in their 70s are the least interested in estate giving and are the most likely to say their money should go to family and friends.
Is your organization targeting the wrong groups for planned giving? The lesson seems to be to start earlier rather than later. Bev Hutney, director of research and innovation at Stelter, said, "...we advise our clients to include younger donors in their conversations about charitable bequests. This goes agaist the grain of conceived wisdom."
The Stelter Company came up with a very nifty infographic that illustrates its findings. Part of that graphic is shown above, and the entire illustration is here. Be sure to scroll down through the news release.
Source: Stelter Company Press Release.
More about planned giving:
Comments
Has anyone realized that there is a error in the information? It seems like the age group of 60s and 70s got flip-flopped somewhere. On the infographic, 60s are “least interested”, but when listing the research finding it is written that the 70s are “least interested”. Likewise on the infographic, the 70s are “most knowledgeable”, but written in the research results that the 60s are “most knowledgeable.” – Just wondering which one is correct?
Good catch, Jaclyn! The info in the release and in the infographic don’t match up on those age groups. I contacted the company to get it straight. Turns out the infographic was wrong, so it has now been corrected.
This is interesting but what does Ms. Hutney mean by “conceived wisdom”? Also, it seems to me that even if people in their 40s express interest in planned giving, it would take a very long time for such a gift to show up, assuming it is actually made? Given current life expectancies, wouldn’t we be talking about 40 years or more? If that’s the case, isn’t this like counting your chickens before they are hatched?