734. The Planned Giving Multiplier: Why Your Most Loyal Donors Are Your Biggest Opportunity - Tony Martignetti

Innovation

Aug 24

Written By Jon McCoy

Listen to this episode

About This Episode

$1,500 in lifetime giving. A million-dollar gift in the will.

Tony Martignetti calls it the planned giving multiplier — the gap between what a donor gives you while they're living and what they leave you when they're gone. It's often measured in the thousands. And the donors most likely to trigger it aren't your wealthiest. They're your most loyal. 🩵

Tony has spent 29 years in planned giving — as a frontline fundraiser, a director of planned giving at two nonprofits, and now founder of Planned Giving Accelerator, where his clients have secured millions in bequests. His new book exists to prove that unlocking the multiplier at your organization takes about a week.

In this episode, you'll hear:

The planned giving multiplier explained — and why the $35,000 average U.S. bequest is a major gift at nearly every small shop
Why a top prospect is defined by consistency, not capacity: 10, 15, 20 years of giving beats a big number every time
Tony's three-step, one-week launch: identify your top prospects, start with gifts in wills, cultivate and solicit

Your loyalty data is already sitting in your database. Here's how to act on it. 🩵

Episode Highlights:

(3:53) 29 years of making planned giving accessible
(5:02) The book title that takes the friction out of the topic
(6:40) Six myths that keep the multiplier locked up
(9:07) The three-step, one-week launch
(10:07) Loyalty over capacity: what makes a top prospect
(12:38) One employee, 200 letters, six bequests
(14:28) Why your toolkit can be minimal
(17:36) The $35,000 average bequest and the 1,000-program goal
(18:52) The multiplier in action: $1,500 in, $1M out
(19:51) A postal worker's $750,000 legacy
(21:06) One good thing: don't be intimidated

Episode Transcript

Meet Tony: The Planned Giving Evangelist Who Turns Loyal Donors Into Legacy Gifts

Tony Martignetti is the founder of Planned Giving Accelerator and the host of Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, one of the sector's longest-running podcasts. A recovering attorney who moved into planned giving in 1997, Tony has been a frontline fundraiser, a director of planned giving at two nonprofits, and a consultant whose clients have secured many millions in bequests.

His new book, Planned Giving Accelerated, launches in September with a single goal: 1,000 new planned giving programs nationwide. Off the clock, Tony is an Air Force veteran, a former New York City stand-up comic, and a man who still handwrites a thank-you note on every check he mails.

Powerful Quotes

"I've seen examples of $1,500 lifetime giving and million-dollar gifts in wills. We're getting into multipliers way into the thousands." — Tony

"What we don't care about is the value of the gifts. It's the consistency, the loyalty, the long-term giving." — Tony

"These are your most loyal, committed donors. They're thinking about you every single year, at least once a year." — Tony

"You have now three or four top planned giving prospects that you didn't have a week ago. That's nothing to be ashamed of. That's where you start." — Tony

"You don't need a campaign. You don't need a website. You don't even need a web page. You just have to start talking to your top prospects." — Tony

"I think it was the first time anyone had ever offered to buy him a lunch. He left us $750,000 in a planned gift." — Tony

"Don't be intimidated by planned giving. It's well within your capacity and your bandwidth." — Tony

"$35,000 is more than 10% of that historical society's entire budget. Planned gifts can turn revenue entirely on its head." — Becky

Resources Mentioned

Planned Giving Accelerated: Tony's practitioner-to-practitioner guide to launching planned giving in one week; releases September 15 (waitlist open now)
Planned Giving Accelerator: Tony's coaching program for shops of any size, from first prospect to boardroom
Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio: one of the sector's longest-running nonprofit podcasts, launched in 2010
Russell James, Texas Tech University: quantitative planned giving researcher; wrote the foreword to Planned Giving Accelerated; his research refutes the myth that planned giving cannibalizes other fundraising