The Pentera Blog
Top Predictors of Charitable Estate Gifts
Here's a little quiz for you: Put in order the top five non-financial predictors of a charitable estate gift at death:
_____ Graduate education
_____ Had a will in last survey before death
_____ No offspring exists
_____ Percent of years reporting existence of a will
_____ Percent of years volunteering 100+ hours
The predictors above are in this order: 5, 2, 1, 4, 3. That's right: Childlessness is the No. 1 non-financial predictor of a charitable estate gift—more than regular volunteering, more than repeatedly reporting the existence of a will, and more than a graduate education.
It does seem surprising, doesn't it? But it is sort of common sense: Most people with children are going to give the bulk of their estate—maybe all of it—to the kids. Those without children have a tendency to "adopt" one or more charities as their heirs. So when looking for prospective donors, it behooves gift planning departments to find out whether those prospects have children.
The recently released predictor rank is part of a 2013 study by Texas Tech professor Russell James titled American Charitable Bequest Demographics. James analyzed a massive study being conducted by the National Institute on Aging that has been tracking more than 20,000 older Americans for more than 20 years, asking them the same questions every two years. When those in the study die, their relatives and caretakers are interviewed to find out exactly what happened with their estates.
In addition to the positive predictors of a charitable estate gift, there are several negative predictors—that someone will not leave a charitable estate gift. Not surprisingly, most of the non-financial negative predictors also have to do with offspring: The top negative predictor is when someone has "living children at last report"; having grandchildren is also in the top five on the negative side.
Childlessness even outranks some of the financial predictors of a charitable estate gift, such as "last reported wealth" and "highest reported wealth." Childlessness is the eighth-highest positive predictor overall, with all of the top seven related to finances; No. 1 overall is "percent of years giving $500+" to charity.
The complete study is available here:
http://www.encouragegenerosity.com/ACBD.pdf
