The Situation: Catapult Fundraising partnered with a private hospital located in southern New Jersey to provide a planned giving telephone outreach program to 1,000 of the hospital’s most loyal donors. Due to their large number of donors, Catapult partnered with the institution to help identify planned giving interest, cultivate these prospects, and educate these donors on planned giving options.

 

The Solution: Catapult partnered with the hospital to design a highly personalized planned giving telephone outreach program and selected 1,000 of the hospital’s best planned giving prospects to contact.  Donors were called by Catapult’s Tier 1 callers who thanked the prospect for loyal support over the years and determined the prospect’s interest in making a planned gift. Depending on their level of interest, an additional phone call was made by a Tier 2 caller. Catapult’s Tier 2 callers are planned giving specialists, each with more than 20 years of experience working directly in planned giving. They have held roles such as Director and Vice President of Planned Giving at major institutions across the United States.  Tier 2 callers informed Legacy Call prospects of their planned gift options and confirmed and quantified planned gifts over the phone.

 

The Goals: Legacy Call calling programs have four broad goals:

1. To thoroughly thank the donors for their loyal support over the years

2. To determine interest in including the hospital in their estate plans

3. To confirm and quantify gifts already completed and thank/recognize these donors

4. To educate/assist donors about planned gift options

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The Result:  Of the 1,000 donors that were reached during the calling program, 770 were reached by our Tier 1 callers. Of those reached, 30% expressed a current interest in planned giving or had already completed a planned gift. Tier 2 callers followed up with each of these individuals to secure the gift. The projected planned giving results for telephone outreach programs are that 10-15% of those reached would have an interest in planned giving.

The 30% rate of interest our calling program identified indicates that the donor base has very strong loyalty to the hospital.

 

An additional 68 prospects expressed interest in exploring options for a planned gift within the next five years. The hospital will personally follow up with these prospects in the future.

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Tier 2 callers secured and received written/verbal confirmation of 18 planned gifts, which totaled $1,023,000. There is potential of an additional $75,000 from prospects with short-term planned giving/outright interest, a potential $22,500 in long-term planned giving interest, a potential $255,000 from prospects with possible future interest, and a potential $60,000 from prospects who would like to continue to receive planned giving marketing materials.  

 

Total confirmed gifts:                           $1,023,000

Total potential gifts:                             $412,500

Total gift potential/confirmed gifts:   $1,435,500

Cost per dollar for confirmed gifts:   $0.06

 

Conclusion: The hospital provided Catapult Fundraising with 1,000 loyal donors to solicit. Donors were mailed a personalized thank you letter, which was followed by a telephone call.

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The entire program took a total of 3 months to complete. 770 prospects were reached, and 18 planned gifts were secured, totaling $1,023,000. An additional 68 prospects expressed interest in making a future planned gift, which resulted in a potential total of $412,500.

 

Catapult Fundraising’s Legacy Call program accomplishes many goals. Loyal donors are thanked for their years of support of the hospital. Through Catapult’s process, callers were able to identify prospects who already left the hospital in their will, which allows the institution to properly acknowledge these gifts they otherwise would not have known about. New planned gifts were confirmed through Tier II calling by gift planning specialists. For those donors who did not commit to making a gift at this time, they were educated on planned gift options to consider for the future. Lastly, a pipeline for major gifts and future planned gifts was created for the hospital. The effects of the Legacy Call program will impact the hospital’s development efforts for years to come.