Written by Viken Mikaelian, CEO of Planned Giving.com 

Forget What You’ve Heard About Planned Giving

Just Do the Math …

Baby Boomers, who are among the wealthiest and most charitable Americans, are dying at a rate of about 6,000 per day. They’re taking around $6 billion in estate dollars with them. (Now, many of you do not know the difference between a million and a billion. Just read on for some staggering numbers.) 

And unless you have a planned giving program, that money is gone forever. Skeptical? Just do the math:

On average, boomers have a net worth of between $970,000 and $1.2 million. They’re responsible for almost half of all charitable giving in the United States. They’ll leave an estimated $11.9 trillion to charities.

And those charities with planned giving programs will receive the greatest share.

Sobering Statistics

The numbers don’t lie: Planned giving works. And we’re not talking about nickels and dimes. We’re talking transformational gifts. Those who understand this are among the most successful; the top 1%.

If we assume the average Boomer has a net worth of $1,000,000 ($1 M), here’s how the math works:

6,000 X $1,000,000 / day = $6,000,000,000.

Struggling with all those zeroes? That’s six billion dollars. (Read below as to what a billion really is.)

Per day.

Yet we consistently hear the same refrain: “Sorry, nothing in the budget for planned giving.”

This leads me to believe that either:

• These nonprofits have an alternative source of funding that’s so plentiful it will soon sustain their mission for generations, but they’re not sharing.
• The folks in charge don’t understand math.

Since there’s no evidence to support No. 1, I’m leaning toward No. 2. As comedian Steven Wright says, “Five out of four people have trouble with fractions.”

What Is a Billion? Really.

Think of it like this: If you had to spend a million dollars at $1,000 a day, you’d run out of money in 3 years. But doing the same with a billion dollars would take 2,740 years for the money to dry up.

A million is one thousand-thousand, or 1,000,000. A billion is a thousand million, or 1,000,000,000.

A typical planned gift is 200 times larger than a donor’s biggest annual gift. With those numbers at stake, ignoring planned giving makes absolutely no sense.

But myths and misconceptions prevail. Fundraisers chase ultra-wealthy unicorns instead of focusing on pragmatic legacy gifts. They search for billionaires and ignore the donor next door.

But do they realize the donor next door is much closer to being a millionaire, than a millionaire is to a billionaire?

Going, Going, Gone

The longer you wait to get serious about planned giving, the more money that’s gone forever. It will go to wiser nonprofits. It will go to heirs who won’t donate it. And a good portion will be lost to avoidable taxes.

But even a basic planned giving program will funnel some of that money into a nonprofit’s coffers. Bequests from middle-class donors frequently exceed $100,000. That means a simple microsite or marketing program could pay for itself multiple times in the course of a year.

Stop waiting for the perfect moment to launch your planned giving program. Stop saying there’s no money in the budget.

Run the numbers, and you’ll find the answers. It’s basic math.

For a full-version of this article, visit PlannedGiving.com.

PS: Even if nonprofits competed for 1% of this money, that’s still a lot of money.