The Pentera Blog
Culver Academies Wins Two CASE V Awards for Innovative Batten Leadership Challenge
All of us at Pentera would like to offer our heartfelt congratulations to our friends at Culver Academies, who just won two Case V awards!
Culver, a Pentera client, received the Gold Award for the Best Program in Planned Giving and the Silver Award for Best Practices in Fundraising and Development. Both awards recognize Culver's recent Batten Leadership Challenge, a $50 million gift-matching opportunity initiated by Jane and Frank Batten.
Culver partnered with Pentera to develop both the innovative strategy behind the Challenge, by utilizing the expert advice of chairman and founder André R. Donikian, JD, and by using Pentera's marketing services to help promote it.
Through a structured and contemporary integrated marketing campaign that included a 4-color brochure, newsletters, QuickCards, and their planned giving Web site, they received over 100 inquiries, made 76 gift annuity solicitations, wrote 35 new annuity contracts, and ultimately met their $50 million campaign goal!
Read the full article about the award-winning Challenge as featured this past July in Pentera's popular publication, Planned Giving Insider:
Results and Success: Integrated Marketing Produces Rich Rewards for Culver Academies
-by Dale Spenner, Director of Planned Giving, Culver Academies
The Culver planned giving program received an extraordinary boost in 2009 with the introduction of the Batten Leadership Challenge in late 2008. One feature of the Challenge, suggested by Pentera's André R. Donikian, included the match of charitable gift annuities at face value, allowing matching funds to go to the general endowment or, with a gift of $50,000 or more, into an endowment of their choice. There was an added incentive of increasing the donor's standard annual rate of return by a full 1% if the gift accompanied an irrevocable bequest commitment for the same or greater amount.
A 4-color brochure was produced by Pentera, our planned giving marketing company, explaining the offer, which we sent to our target alumni with a powerful cover letter signed by John Buxton, Jim Henderson, and Miles White. The offer was also a feature story in both issues of Culver Perspectives, promoted on our Web site, and mentioned in other campaign communications.
As a result, we received more than 100 inquiries, made 76 gift annuity solicitations, and wrote 35 new annuity contracts for a total of $5,530,033. During the 12 months before the Challenge, the planned giving department wrote only two annuity contracts. This promotion nearly doubled the total annuity contracts on the books from 37 to more than 70 in a single year.
During 2009 the primary focus of the Department of Development staff was on achieving the revised By Example campaign goal of $300,000,000 by 6/30/2010. This goal was achieved early, and deferred giving played a substantial part in the campaign's success. As of 1/27/10, the deferred gifts portion of the campaign total was $77.2 million, accounting for 21% of the $367.6 million overall campaign total given or pledged.
In the previous year Culver received 47 new estate bequests with an estimated value of over $9 million. Culver received $2.1 million from realized bequests during the calendar year of 2009. There is an additional $520,974 from these bequests pending distribution this year.
Culver's planned giving Web site, launched on April 12, 2007, and upgraded in the spring of 2008 when Culver's redesigned Web site came online, continues to be an important reference tool for our potential planned giving donors. The site includes many interactive features and an archive of past newsletters and donor stories. Electronic brochures have been added for easy download. These brochures are automatically updated when laws and conditions change. They are used as a response mechanism to offers through Culver Perspectives and direct mailers. Although the site is maintained by our service provider, Pentera, access to the site is seamlessly integrated with the overall Culver site.
The planned giving office actively promoted the federal government's extension of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which provided an incentive for donors to make direct distributions from their IRA accounts before 12/31/09. After an additional postcard mailing in October 2009 and an article in Culver Perspectives, Culver received 22 individual IRA direct distributions totaling $256,426 last year.
For more information on how Pentera can help you achieve your campaign goals, visit http://www.pentera.com/, e-mail us at info@pentera.com, or call us at 317-875-0910 x251.
