Why Visualization is Key to Major and Planned Giving Success

In the past several blogs, we’ve covered five of the seven steps of FUNDING matters, Power Donor Experience (PDX). The goal of the PDX is to help individuals and organizations visualize how they need to manage the relationships and develop a prospect pipeline. Underlying all of the steps is the ability to visualize that donation at the end of the tunnel.

In this Harvard Business Review article, Scott Berinato argues that there are four different types of visualization, but all are just a means to an end. “Visualization is merely a process. What we actually do when we make a good chart is get at some truth and move people to feel it—to see what couldn’t be seen before. To change minds. To cause action.”

This blog will focus on why visualization is the key to success as you continue to engage donors and how you can help them visualize their future contributions.

How Visualization Can Help You 
The PDX lays out several visualization steps for you – perhaps you just didn’t know that’s what they were until right now. The most prominent are Step 1 and Step 4.

Step 1 (Brainstorming and Strategy) is perhaps the greatest opportunity for visualization. Berniato references brainstorming directly as a key tool in idea generation. Whiteboards, butcher paper, the back of a napkin, or a Google Doc – however you brainstorm best is up to you, but this type of visualization is seen as a way that business can work and answer complex challenges. For you, it’s how you will ensure planned giving success. You’re laying the foundation and beginning the process of identifying, cultivating, and soliciting high-net-worth donors.

Step 4 (Communication) is also a highly-valuable step in the visualization process. This is when you have the opportunity to prepare communication materials to build your prospects’ enthusiasm and commitment. This is what Berniato calls “idea illustration.” He says the focus should be on “clear communication, structure, and the logic of the ideas.” By creating these materials, you’re able to visualize the optimal outcome (a donation), and your donors are able to visualize donating themselves.

How To Help Donors Visualize
 Helping donors visualize is also essential to achieving major and planned giving. As noted above, you directly help this process along in Step 4 of the PDX by providing written materials, but what if there was an even better way? Say you have a donor who lives in Ontario and their household income is in the range of $95,000 and $115,000. This range indicates their tax bracket on income. They have been contributing $1,000 to your organization each year in December as part of their year-end tax planning. They support your mission as both a donor and a volunteer, and you feel secure in their commitment to your organization.

Now, you want to show them a simple illustration of another method of tax-efficient giving that they may do at any point in the year. Ideally, this would be triggered by growth in an asset like a publicly-traded stock or a mutual fund. If they purchased Shopify shares at $100 per share and today their shares are worth $1,500, their capital gain on their Shopify shares is $1,400. If sold, they would be required to pay the tax on the capital gains.

In helping your donor visualize how the part of all of the tax on their capital gain can be used to make their donation, it demystifies the donation process and allows them to visualize actually make that donation. In the end, this makes both you, your donor, and your organization happy.

Fortunately, you don’t have to sit with each and every prospect donor and lay out all of the different options. The GIFTABULATOR does this for you. Here what it will show donors:

• How they can support your charity without impacting their lifestyle
• How a donation to your charity can help them minimize their taxes and those of their beneficiaries
• How they can ensure that their values and beliefs are reflected in their estate planning choices
• How their potential to give back is based on their assets as opposed to their income

Final Thoughts 

Visualization is key to major and planned giving success because it allows both you and your prospective donor to better understand how you can make it happen.

As Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.”

For more information on the GIFTABULATOR, visit here. It’s easy to understand, use, and explain. It’s a tool individualized for each prospective donor that will demonstrate their potential giving capacity and help them visualize donating to you.