Tag Archives: National Conference on Philanthropic Planning

Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio for October 29, 2010

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Compliance. Board relations. Fundraising. Technology. Volunteer management. Accounting. Finance. Marketing. Social media. Investments.

Every nonprofit faces these issues and big nonprofits have experts in each. Small and medium size nonprofits have Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts throughout the country join Tony to take on the tough issues facing your organization.

Episode 15 of Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio for October 29, 2010

Tony’s Guests:

Paula Marks

I’m Looking: Savvy Strategies for Your Search: A nonprofit job-seeker, Leonora Scala, gets advice from our expert recruiter, Paula Marks, Managing Director with Gilbert Tweed International, on spiffing-up the resume; emphasizing strengths; where to look; networking; interviewing; and using social media for search. Paula’s tips will help you in your own search, whether it’s today or in the future.

  • Here’s the current resume for Leonora Scala. It’s all corporate. After she and Paula revise it to appeal to nonprofits, we’ll post the revision so you can compare the two.

Robert Sharpe

How To Cripple Your Career In 5 Easy Steps, Part 1: In partnership with The Chronicle of Philanthropy, I interviewed Robert at the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning. He shares how Planned Giving fundraisers can shoot their career in the foot. Robert has decades of experience witnessing the shooting matches fundraisers have with themselves. Maybe you should forward this to someone you know? (Part 2 will be broadcast on a future show.)

Here is the link to the podcast: 016: Savvy Strategies for Your Search & How To Cripple Your Career In 5 Easy Steps

When and where: Talking Alternative Radio, Friday, 1-2pm Eastern.

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Here is the link to the podcast: 011: How to Make-or Ruin-Your Nonprofit Career
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Reynolds Cafferata Interview at National Conference on Philanthropic Planning

I have left the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning to attend and speak at a seminar in New York City today. NCPP in Lake Buena Vista, Florida continues through today.

Yesterday, I interviewed Reynolds Cafferata, Esq. with the law firm of Rodriguez, Horii, Choi & Cafferata in Los Angeles. That’s a tax firm representing nonprofits and their donors (but not in the same transactions–that’d be a conflict, without a waiver).

He had a great attitude about getting behind the podcast mic. Essentially, “I’m here, I’m ready, let’s go.” Not your typical circumspect, practicing attorney.

Reynolds Cafferata, Esq
Reynolds’ conference seminar is “Creating Effective Legal Structures for Multigenerational Philanthropy.” There’s a mouthful. He parsed it for me. “Multigenerational philanthropy” is charitable giving that brings in the kids, grandkids, great grandkids and other heirs depending how far the donor wants to go. And how willing the family is to participate. Some of these legal structures last a term of years and aren’t truly multigenerational. I wouldn’t have asked him to capture that possibility in his program title.

Donors and their families might do this to pass to heirs the value of philanthropy; or because a certain charity or group of charities has been enormously meaningful; or, simply to give back to society and help those in need.

The “legal structures” we discussed are corporations, foundations and trusts. You’ll have to catch the interview for more on those, but we didn’t go into great detail on these vehicles. I wanted to pursue another line.

His firm represents individuals giving to nonprofits, and I was interested in what he’s seen in nonprofits overreaching with donors. His quick answer was the legally enforceable, or binding, pledge agreement. He sees these too often and holds that they bring little or no value to charities and can be detrimental to donors.

Reynolds’ seminar was yesterday afternoon, but you can hear my interview on Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Sign up for show alerts on the Facebook page and you’ll know which show it’ll play on.

Anne Melvin Interview at NCPP

Anne’s seminar at the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning was “Motivating Your Donor Base: The Science (and Art) of Planned Giving Marketing.” That’s a broad topic and we stuck mostly to direct mail marketing.

Anne is Deputy Director of Gift Planning for Harvard College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She’s got 17 years in fundraising, the last 12 in planned gift work.

Anne Melvin
Right from the start she identified misplaced marketing time. Her analysis reveals that 20% of the effectiveness of direct mail comes from the art; 40% from segmentation; and 40% from your message. Yet people spend the majority of their time stressing over the look of their piece or package.

We talked a good bit about properly segmenting your direct mail appeals: deciding who to mail to and for what types of gifts. Anne admonishes that if you’re assessing donor loyalty and commitment, say, those who have given 8 gifts in the past 10 years, ignore gift size. Ten and twenty-five dollar gifts matter. Those are donors who think about you year after year, and they’re strong prospects for a planned gift, assuming they’re the right age for the gift vehicle you’re promoting.

Her message on messaging: keep it simple. One message per mailing (or email). Don’t promote bequests and gift annuities in the same package.

Anne has gotten away from letters. She feels their outdated. The pieces we were talking about are self-mailer, three-fold cards, with an integrated reply device. When Anne does newsletters, she prefers envelopes that drop-out or are stapled-in-the-middle. Harvard has concluded that cut-off reply pieces reduce response rates.

Anne’s program was yesterday, but you can hear our discussion on Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Go to the Facebook page for alerts and you’ll know when it’ll broadcast.

P.S. I love the color of her suit. And not because it’s close to the color of my shirt.

Raymund and I Talk To Robert Sharpe

Raymund Flandez, reporter for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and I sat down to talk planned giving career busters with Robert Sharpe. Robert’s conference seminar is “How to Cripple Your Career in 5 Easy Steps.” That’s an unusual topic for the man typically devoted to the strategies around planned and major giving.

Robert Sharpe
What a great format for an easy interview and blog post. Here are Robert’s career cripplers:

  • Fail to understand Planned Giving.
  • Fail to understand donor motivations–what drives people to give.
  • Don’t know your market–who makes what types of planned gifts.
  • Don’t work closely with other fundraisers.
  • Ignore the economics of giving.

Sound advice for anyone looking for a pink slip.

We also explored the advantages that small and mid-size fundraising shops enjoy. They’re quick-acting, can build stronger relationships and don’t have to seek approval before picking up the phone to call a donor.

The full, 35-minute interview will be on Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. To find out which show, go the the Facebook page and sign-up for our email alerts.

Morning Interview: Emily Lam & Perry Wasserman

Me interviewing Emily Lam and Perry Wasserman
These two are Washington insiders. Emily has worked in the Office of Tax Policy at the Treasury Department. Now she is with a prestigious D.C. law firm. Perry is a lobbyist who works exclusively with nonprofits. Their conference topic is “Tax Policy & the Future of Philanthropic Planning“.

We started with the caveat that the game changes on election day, November 2nd. I refrained from asking for their predictions.

Congress has been “slow and negligent” on tax issues, Perry concludes. The estate tax, Bush tax cuts and the tax extenders, including the charitable IRA rollover, have all been delayed or ignored. Financial and healthcare overhaul pushed these to the back burner.

Emily shared concerns about the new Internal Revenue Code provision troubling healthcare institutions, section 501(r). It’s enormously intrusive, requiring subsidized care at minimum levels, for instance.

They both shared opinions on what it will mean when, under the most likely scenario, Orrin Hatch replaces Senator Grassley on the Senate Finance committee–an important tax-writing committee. Grassley has been an unprecedented maverick around nonprofit oversight and the two expect his successor to the ranking member spot to be quite interested in charity regulation, but not as outspoken as Grassley.

More interviews today and a flight home this afternoon.