5 Tips for Non Profits
Planning for Good has some suggestions for your organization intended to facilitate support: The following are organizational and operational "standards" that can be appealing to foundations, donors & their advisors. If you have others you would be willing to share, please use the Contact Me link and let us know what they are.
Make your duly board-adopted Gift Acceptance Policy available on line and on paper to Professional Advisors and their donors.
Professional Advisors play an important role in planned giving: They will advise their client about and author the terms of any planned gift to the charity or charities included in an estate plan. Before they can advise their client or craft the language, they must know the terms of your organizations Gift Acceptance Policy if the gift is not in cash or readily marketable securities. When your organizations adopts such a policy or approves any substantial amendments, provide that information to the Professional Advisors with whom your donors may have a relationship; this would include (at a minimum) the estate planning attorneys, financial planners, bank trust officers and accounting professionals in your vicinity. If you need help determining who they are, ask a member of the board of your local planned giving council or estate planning council.
Also make your duly board-adopted Investment and Spending Policies available on line and on paper to Professional Advisors and their donors
In considering whether to make a planned gift to your organization that would become part of the organization’s endowment, a donor and their professional advisor will examine the way in which the organization invests its fund and the board’s policy on spending such funds. An investment policy should reflect the goals of the organization in having the endowment, and the risk tolerance, benchmarks and performance review mechanisms to be used. Similarly, a spending policy will show a donor just exactly what amount will be available to support the organization on an annual basis in the future, or how that amount will be calculated year-to-year.
Don’t let your organization’s leadership think of endowments as a luxury.
From a donor’s perspective, having an endowment may give them an opportunity to create a legacy that will, with an appropriate spending policy, assure them their gift will support the mission for generations to come.
It also gives donors a choice for how to make a substantial gift, and who doesn’t like choices when making a big decision?
From a private foundation or other investor’s perspective, it communicates that your organization has deliberately contemplated the future and is planning and working towards providing for that future. This conveys the organizations strong sense of its own worth in the landscape of charity and philanthropy, and the paramount importance of its mission.
Optimize your organization’s presence and appeal on the landscape of charities in your area and/or mission area of interest.
Consider adopting standards and practices for organizations such as Guiding Principles and Practices for Nonprofit Excellence in Maine published by the Maine Association of Non Profits in 2007 available at www.nonprofitmaine.org, and Standards of Practice for the Model Gift Planner from www.ncpg.org, and similar standards of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, available at www.afp.org, that show all types of donors, including corporations and foundations, that your organization is functioning at an optimal level of accountability.
Scan your organization’s 501(c)(3) letter and make it available in the development or history area of your web site.
This makes it almost as easy as possible for advisors and donors to know you have the status required for deductibility of gifts for income, estate or gift tax purposes. The letter is generally available on-line at www.guidestar.org, but placing it on your site saves the professional advisor the trouble of going to a second site after yours; they will be well-advised to have a copy for their client file.
