Nonprofits are supported by people at all stages of life. When we invite more conversations about legacy, we help the people who care about their mission consider how they can support the causes they care about when they aren’t here anymore. In this episode, Nancy and Sarah reflect on some lessons Nancy learned with her mother’s passing. They discuss:
- Why it is helpful to have a fundraising strategy that offers many ways to support across donor life stages
- What a nonprofit can do to encourage donors to create a will, which most Americans don’t have in place (according to PlannedGiving.com )
- How to have conversations about legacy with people in the last stages of their lives
Your donors care about your mission. They want you to continue to achieve your mission after they are no longer around to write checks or show up at events. When you invite conversations about legacy into your organization, you invite the stories that remind us why people care about what we do. It is a gift to donors to hear those stories and give them ways to act on their legacy. You got this.
Question to reflect on before you listen:
How do you currently support legacy conversations with your donors?
- What resonated with you about this conversation? What would you like to take back to your organization?
- While the exact percentage varies by age and demographic group, on average 68% of Americans do not have wills. What might your nonprofit do to help your donors to have a will?
- What might you learn about your organization by having more legacy conversations with your donors?
Word of the week: Legacy
Legacy is often associated with death, but we can have a legacy at any transition: leaving a board of directors, changing jobs, etc. Thinking about legacy from a broader point of view invites thinking about how anyone within our organizations can think about the influence they want to leave behind. How might you think about legacy within your organization?