Planning for planned giving: a "golden age of philanthropy" is upon us but less than a third of America's 3,000 not-for-profit colleges and universities have endowments. Few have the resources to set up planned giving programs, but there are effective ways for your school to attract endowments. Here's how

Matrix: The Magazine for Leaders in Education, June, 2001 by Judith Harkham Semas

Large brokerage/investment houses such as Fidelity, Merrill Lynch, and Vanguard have their own donor-advised funds. "But," he says, "no other financial services company is interested in collaborating with not-for-profits in establishing and managing the not-for-profit's own donor-advised program, the way we do."

Fees for a variety of planned giving administration and management services can range as high as 1 percent to 2 percent of total assets under management. However, TIAA-CREF says its fees are typically half of what a competing firm would charge.

"As a nonprofit ourselves, we're not trying to generate the 30 [percent] to 40 percent pre-tax margin that many for-profit trust organizations are expected to deliver to their owners," Brizendine says. "We're the only such organization focused on the nonprofit community, particularly higher education, so all our resources are focused on meeting the unique needs of that market."

Opportunity Knocks

Current trends--unprecedented inherited wealth for the baby boom generation, growing interest in philanthropic giving, a cornucopia of vehicles available for philanthropic giving--are converging to create the largest pool of potential charitable donations ever. That's the opportunity. Right now, few but the largest institutions are positioned to capitalize on it.

TIAA-CREF's recent planned giving survey of almost 300 hundred institutions of all sizes reflects "an incredible lack of development resources ... committed to planned giving activities." It reports that the average large public institution employed 31 full-time staff, of which only three were dedicated to planned giving. For large private institutions, the reported figures were 24 and 2, respectively. Small institutions, both public and private, reflected similar staff ratios.

"The not-for-profit community hasn't deployed adequate resources to effectively gather planned gifts," Brizendine says. "We believe organizations have been off-put by planned giving's complexities, government regulations and the hefty financial service fees these organizations have been led to expect. Those are all problems we can solve for them."

Not-For-Profit Information Planned Giving Resources

Association of Fundraising Professionals (Formerly National Society for Fundraising Executives) www.nsfre.org

Provides support, training and development for fundraising professionals

Council for Advancement and Support of Education www.case.org

Provides support, training and development for education professionals in alumni relations, communications and development

Council for Resource Development www.ppcc.cccoes.edu/crd/default.htm

Educates and advocates for community college leaders dedicated to securing resources to increase the effectiveness of their institutions. An affiliate of the American Association of Community Colleges

National Committee on Planned Giving www.ncpg.org

Professional association for people whose work includes developing, marketing and administering charitable planned gifts. Includes fundraisers for nonprofit institutions and consultants and donor advisors working in a variety of for-profit settings.