IRS Applicable Federal Midterm Rate for September 2011 is 2.0%.

The Valuation Rate for New Pooled Income Funds in 2011 is 2.8%. See an expanded explanation of how this rate is calculated.

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In this issue:

• Featured Article: Common Recommendations from Our Consulting Audits
• Help Clip: Computing FASB Liabilities in PGM
• Quick Tip: GiftGuide Now Gives You More Flexibility
• Personalization: A Key Component of Direct Mail Success
• Marketing Corner with Ann McPherson: When Did I Become a Marketer?
• North Carolina State University Values PG Calc’s “Excellent Products and Services”
• Upcoming Webinar: Appealing to Cautious Donors, September 22
• Upcoming Training: Group Training Sessions Prior to NCPP

Common Recommendations from Our Consulting Audits
PG Calc is a pretty exciting place to work – especially if you like projects as interesting as reviewing planned giving programs of every size, shape, and maturity. We are often asked to uncover key problems that hinder the effectiveness of planned giving efforts.  This article outlines a few of the more common recommendations that we give to clients. While it’s clear that all of these problems rarely exist in one place, the four categories of recommendations are the recurring themes.

Learn more...

Past topics...

Help Clip: Computing FASB Liabilities in PGM
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) requires charities to include their planned gift liabilities in their annual financial statements.  Whether a gift annuity, charitable remainder trust, pooled income fund gift, or retained life estate, you can use Planned Giving Manager (PGM) to compute the liability your organization needs to report.

Learn more...

Quick Tip: GiftGuide Now Gives You More Flexibility
The latest release of GiftGuide, PG Calc’s set of interactive tools and content for enhancing the gift planning area of your charity’s website, includes two great new features: 

1) You now have complete control over which gift types, presentations, and descriptions are available to visitors. These selections are independent of each other. For example, you can disable the Meet Your Goals with a Gift Annuity presentation while leaving the gift annuity calculation and gift annuity description available. This enhancement gives you the ability to tailor how much, and which type, of information you would like your users to view. See Gift Options – Gift Types in the Client Center.

2) You can also customize the order in which presentations and descriptions appear in GiftGuide menus. See the Presentations, Gift Descriptions, and Asset Descriptions grids under Gift Options – Gift Types in the Client Center to create the order you prefer.

Learn more...

Personalization: A Key Component of Direct Mail Success
PG Calc’s BatchCalcs service makes direct mail more effective by including personalized calculations for each recipient – giving you a fast, easy, and affordable way to create more persuasive postal or email mailings. Contact Joe Sabella at 888-497-4970 or jsabella@pgcalc.com to optimize your year-end mailings.

Learn more about BatchCalcs

Marketing Corner with Ann McPherson: When Did I Become a Marketer?
Marketing is increasingly fundamental to the cultivation of planned gift prospects.  You may have asked yourself at one time or another: “When did I become a Marketer?”  I can’t answer that for you, but I can outline some qualities that, in my experience, make for a successful marketer.

1. Curious. This is a kinder, gentler word for “analytical.” Successful marketers constantly need to be asking themselves: “What would happen if I tried it this way?” Whether that means moving an annual mailing to March instead of April (or even better, conducting an A/B test in which half are sent in March and half in April and noting which performed better) or deciding between personalized communications and generic mails (or again, testing by sending half one way and half the other), regularly trying new approaches will bring increasing insight to your organization’s marketing efforts over time.
   
   
2. Strategic. Each marketing tactic should be linked to an overall strategic (perhaps annual) plan. Managing a marketing program is like managing any other program – it requires managing limited resources, making investments, and being accountable for results.
   
   
3. Patient.  Instant gratification is often sought but rarely realized in marketing. Most worthwhile goals (including keeping visitors on your planned giving website for longer periods of time or increasing your insight into bequest intentions) require disciplined processes that reveal success over time. Only after hard work and a lot of repetition will your efforts show progress.

North Carolina State University Values PG Calc's "Excellent Products and Services"
Steve Watt, North Carolina State University's Executive Director of Gift Planning, says "We have valued our relationship with the staff at PG Calc for more than a decade. NC State uses Planned Giving Manager for our gift calculations and illustrations, and last year we added the GiftWrap program to enable us to better record, track and report on all of our planned gift commitments. 

“NC State's goal is to provide the best possible donor stewardship and support, and the excellent products and services from PG Calc enable us to achieve that goal. With our external planned gift administrator also using PG Calc’s software products, it affords us the opportunity to ensure that our gift proposals and supporting documentation are accurate and complete.

“The staff at PG Calc is always available to help us, or to provide additional resources, allowing us to be responsive to donor questions and deal with those 'unusual' situations we often encounter. We can always count on PG Calc to help us better serve our donors!"

Learn more about Planned Giving Manager

Learn more about GiftWrap

Learn more about North Carolina State University

Upcoming Webinar: Appealing to Cautious Donors, September 22
Many donors want to make a planned gift, yet hesitate for one reason or another.  For some, a primary worry may be the economy.  Others are just plain cautious by nature.  This session will offer fruitful ways to work with donors who express these sorts of concerns, and suggest a variety of giving arrangements well-suited to their situations.

Date: September 22, 2011
Presenter: Bill Zook
Time: 1:00 – 2:30 pm ET

Register

Upcoming Training: Group Training Sessions Prior to NCPP
We will be offering our Gift Planning with Planned Giving Manager and Gift Administration with GiftWrap group training sessions in San Antonio in October prior to the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning (NCPP). These sessions provide a solid foundation for individuals who are new to planned giving and gift administration. They may also serve to reinforce the skills and knowledge of experienced gift planners and administrators. We hope you’ll join us!

October 3-4
Gift Planning with Planned Giving Manager
Introductory & Advanced
San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter, San Antonio, TX

October 3-4
Gift Administration with GiftWrap
Basics & Reporting and Analysis
San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter, San Antonio, TX

For more information or to register

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