The Pentera Blog
COVID-19 - Claudine and Meg Cline Discuss How the University of Illinois Foundation Has Adapted Their Planned Giving Program During COVID-19
6th in a series
By Claudine A. Donikian, President & CEO, Pentera, Inc.
Pentera CEO Claudine Donikian recently spoke with Margaret A. "Meg" Cline, vice president for gift planning and trust services at the University of Illinois Foundation, about her department's experience with donors during these uncertain times due to the coronavirus. Here are excerpts from their conversation.
Claudine: Meg, thank you for joining me. I have been having discussions with other industry experts about how various organizations have been adapting their planned giving programs and working with donors in light of the current crisis due to the novel coronavirus. It's a perfect time for stewardship, even if it's not the best time to directly ask for a gift—unless a donor leads the conversation that way. What kind of directives have you given people in your department about how to interact with donors? How have you been doing things differently at the University of Illinois now that things are so different?
Meg: I see staff and donors adapting to new ways of doing things. We are utilizing technology more in our daily work, incorporating DocuSign and other technologies in the administrative work we do. In fact, we are expediting the transition to new technologies to meet the needs of the units and donors we serve. Use of technology is also impacting our engagement with donors as our organization is hosting more "virtual events," and I have had at least a dozen Zoom chats doing check-ins with donors. They are glad to engage this way!
Claudine, you're right that we aren't making direct solicitations. But we have found that our donors do want to have conversations about their support. Many of them even want to talk about gift planning. When this first started, our gift planning team had daily staff calls, asking each other, "What should we be doing with donors?" And we were a little hesitant to make contact at first, and rightfully so; people were suffering—ill and losing jobs—and we didn't want to offend anyone.
But we were quickly reminded that fundraising is a relationship business; people don't give to institutions, they give to people. These donors are important in our lives: it's not just a professional relationship, but a personal relationship. Some of them are part of our more vulnerable population, and we are concerned. So we reach out. That ongoing communication is key to our relationship with our donors—both in good times and bad.
When I call and ask how they are doing, some respond by saying, "Meg, how is your family?" Then many of them ask, "How is the university doing?" So we tell them what our university is doing: technology developed by faculty to help health care workers on the front lines; how we are serving the state as advisors to policymakers on COVID-19; what the plans are for next semester. We update them, and it makes them feel good. And in some cases, those calls have turned into them wanting to talk about their estate plans or about giving.
Donors have more time than they have ever had before—they are not golfing or playing bridge—so they want to attend to some of the paperwork and outstanding items on their plate geared to accomplishing their goals. I had one call from a woman who had received our Pentera-produced Generations newsletter for years but had never been interested in a gift planning meeting. She called and said, "I need to talk to somebody right now; I need to get this done given the uncertainty of the world we live in."
And our donors know what our mission is. They might say, "I want to do something additional this year to help the COVID-19 efforts. What can we do extra to support the university?" Not every conversation goes that way, but we are prepared to assist them in making those gifts a reality if the timing is right for them.
Claudine: That's wonderful when the conversation goes that way. That sounds like it could even turn into a major gift. What else are you doing to promote your work in these challenging times?
Meg: In the next two weeks we are hosting Zoom calls with our major gift officers. We are going to focus on the CARES Act, hit the high points, and give some illustrations of applied examples. We want to make sure the major gift officers have the tools to start some of these conversations in their calls, like we have been doing in our calls.
Claudine: It's strategic and smart for everyone to work together like that. Everybody wins: the donor wins, the gift officer wins, the university wins.
With the CARES Act, we offered our clients a major pivot in their marketing—to switch topics if they were doing estate planning or gift annuities (which are very attractive right now). These could be very important topics in these times, but it seemed that there could be a risk of seeming insensitive. You probably heard about one university—not one of our clients—that sent out an e-mail about the reasons why you might update your estate plan, and they got a backlash on social media.
So we wrote a topic on the CARES Act and suggested to our clients that they send that topic instead of what they were planning. It's new legislation, and donors should be educated about such topics. The vast majority of our clients switched to that topic and were much more comfortable proceeding.
Meg: I want to give a big thank you to you for having Pentera be so adaptable. It's important to communicate these changes in the tax law. We want to get the information out there, presenting it as, "These are things you may want to think about in your overall planning going forward." We appreciate that the piece developed took the approach of "educating" and providing a resource instead of being a direct solicitation. That is what Pentera is doing, and we are grateful we have had such a long-term relationship and partnership with Pentera in which you adapt and respond to our needs.
Claudine: We certainly appreciate it as well, and we think the CARES Act topic will be very effective. I find it really interesting that you have focused on the CARES Act in some of your phone calls with donors.
Meg: When the CARES Act passed, we decided to go through our portfolios and ask ourselves, "Are there opportunities here?" Do you have donors who you know have pledge balances out there and have cash assets and may be interested in accelerating their giving? Reach out and have a conversation: "I just want to make sure you are aware of the CARES Act and these new provisions. I know you have a pledge out there, and I am grateful for your support. And the CARES Act may change your planning with this opportunity that wasn't previously available to you." These individualized conversations with donors we know well have been very productive.
Claudine: So that emphasis on the CARES Act has been working well for you.
Meg: Very well. We just have to see it as educational because it can go both ways in terms of giving. One donor was really concerned with her IRA, and I said, "You know, Congress has suspended your RMD (required minimum distribution); maybe this year you don't pull money out when your portfolio is down. Maybe you make a gift from cash assets, or maybe you sell some stock at a loss and take a cash deduction. But leave your RMD alone, give it time to come back and rebound."
Do you think they appreciate that advice? Of course they do. The thing is that we have a pretty good idea what's on their minds; we know what their assets are. We can help them discover other ways to maintain their philanthropic support with other assets rather than the IRA rollover when they don't want to take out their RMD.
We also point donors to our Web site—our Pentera Web site, I mean—that provides an update on the CARES Act. We tell them, "Here is where you can capture all that information." The resources and tools help us better serve these donors we have well-established working relationships with that we have built over time.
Claudine: You may be doing your marketing a little differently, but it's important that the marketing continue. After the downturn of 2008, the last thing businesses should have done is cut the marketing budget. The ones that continued kept their business top of mind and had a really great return on investment after the recession was over.
Meg: That's so true. We are going into budget time; and if we are confronted with budget cuts, my hope is that we can find ways to cut out travel, meals, and other areas to maintain a strong marketing budget. Having a consistent marketing message is what will be effective. We are going to use marketing, whether direct mail, e-mail, Webinars, or virtual gatherings, to stay connected in the next year to 18 months.
Claudine: Of course you want to use both print and digital marketing. One thing to know during this time: With digital there is about a 20% open rate, so your e-mail is not being seen by 80%. But everybody is at home right now, going through their mail, with time on their hands. So the print component can be even more powerful. Our pieces are educational in nature; and when donors respond, they are saying they want more in-depth information about whatever the topic is. An e-mail is one and done; a print piece you put in a drawer where you keep documents and look at it later.
Meg: We all have those examples of the long-term impact of print: You go meet with a donor who reaches out to you in response to a mailing and they have the last five years of our Generations newsletter that they have saved. Or we get a card in the mail from a mailing we sent out three years ago. We never know how people are going to take in and process the information. There is no one way that people process it. We have to have a multipronged approach that is digital and print. But we get more attention with the print piece: they hold it, they see a story that is interesting, and they keep it, either to read it now or later. Whereas with an e-mail it is so easy to hit delete. In this environment, we also recognize that digital communication allows us to be nimble and responsive to setting the right tone and adapting as the environment shifts. We will continue to do both but may rely a bit more on our digital efforts on certain pieces where we feel the need to adapt that messaging.
Claudine: People are going to get that message with the integrated print and digital campaigns that we do. That marketing approach continues to be effective.
Meg: How we market, how we engage, that is constant. We just have to be more adaptable, more resilient, and more creative. The world we are living in is changing. But we must also remember one thing that is not changing: Planned gifts are from assets, and that is different from gifts that are from income.
Claudine: That's why planned giving marketing is so different from other types of fundraising. So what else can you tell us? What are your final thoughts?
Meg: One question I have been thinking about is if this is prolonged, how do we track performance? For a gift planner we look at how many people we have visits with. But our staff is not having in-person visits. That's something I as a supervisor have to look at. We have to replace travel visits with virtual visits. I had an hour-and-a-half call yesterday with a donor, discussing how to structure a blended gift. That has to be a "visit"; it's time and effort different than a typical phone call.
As we make these changes, I believe that our team, our employees, will grow and be more effective fundraisers. As long as we maintain meaningful engagement with donors, at the end of all this we will be a better organization because of it. I guess I am an optimist, a "glass is half full" kind of person.
Claudine: Those are great points. Now that travel isn't taking up as much time, there's even more time to visit with donors. And it sounds like the way we all look at metrics will be changing too.
Thank you so much for your time, Meg. It's always so nice to talk with you, and your insights will be helpful to many people as we all navigate this "new normal."
Recommendations to clients from Pentera CEO Claudine Donikian, JD, MBA
These are unprecedented times because of the rapidly changing landscape due to the coronavirus. We have the following recommendations for our valued clients:
- Steward donors. Personal updates about happenings at your organization and letting them know that you will be rescheduling any canceled events will be reassuring.
- Schedule phone or virtual meeting with planned gift donors. Scheduling calls and using other technology such as Facetime with donors would be the preferred alternative, even with local donors.
- Serve as a resource to donors. While only the occasional gift can be traced directly to the marketing resources we provide, it's important to remember that those resources lay the fundamental groundwork for planned gifts by educating your constituents about estate and financial planning and prompting them to take action. You can and should provide this valuable educational resource to your constituents, and your office should remember its main purpose is to serve as a resource as well.
- Make sure that your messaging is timely. Uncertain economic times are usually ideal for featuring gift annuities and charitable remainder annuity trusts that provide fixed income. Or donors may want to make a revocable gift such as a bequest provision or a beneficiary designation. However, given the current environment, a more timely approach would be to inform donors about the charitable implications of the CARES Act.
- Help donors take the long view regarding life-income gifts, and provide reassurance to your donors about them.
Read the details of these recommendations here.
Biography of Margaret A. Cline, CFA, CFP®
Margaret A. (Meg) Cline serves as the vice president for gift planning and trust services at the University of Illinois Foundation, where she is responsible for the team of professional staff that oversees all aspects of gift planning, deferred gift administration, and all gift documentation for the University of Illinois System and its three universities. Prior to assuming this role in 2015, Meg served for five years as the associate dean for advancement for the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before joining the university in 2005, Meg worked for the Missouri State Employees' Retirement System and as a financial advisor.
Meg received a bachelor of science degree and an MBA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds the Certified Financial Planner® designation and the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. Meg is a member of many professional associations, including the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute, a current board member for the Chicago Council on Planned Giving, the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners, the Eastern Illinois Estate Planning Council, The Lincoln Academy of Illinois, and P.E.O.
