More Women Make Tribute Gifts, Which Can Be Inspired by Specific Strategy

Two recent findings about tribute gifts may help with your planned giving marketing strategies with prospective donors:

• More women than men tend to make gifts honoring others, according to a Pentera survey of the donor behavior of its clients.
• Tribute gifts can be inspired by a specific three-part strategy, according to researcher Russell James of Texas Tech University.

"Tribute gifts are an important part of planned giving, and the information that women tend to make more of them is significant," said Claudine Donikian, Pentera CEO. "It is also important to have this new strategy from Russell James about how to suggest tribute gifts to prospective donors."

Pentera finds that women make more tribute gifts than men

Pentera recently conducted research on client donors and found that almost two-thirds of tribute gifts were made by women.

Tribute gifts made by:

Female		64.3%
Male		21.4%
Couple		14.3%

The tribute gifts usually honored deceased family members. Parents were the top choice for honors, regardless of who was making the gift; second choice among women was to honor a deceased husband. A number of women donating to colleges made gifts to their late husband's alma mater; no men made a comparable tribute.

Single women rarely honor themselves

While many men and couples made gifts in their own names, virtually no single women (including widows) did so: they chose to honor someone else. That almost always was a deceased loved one; one of the few tributes to a living person was a woman donor who set up a fund in the name of her doctor - even though she knew she wasn't going to survive the condition for which her doctor was treating her.

James recommends three-part strategy for tribute gifts

James found in his research that the most effective strategy for tribute gifts is to:

1. Ask a prospective donor about family or friend connections to your charity. ("Do you have a deceased friend or deceased family member who would have appreciated your support of an organization such as our charity.")
2. Share the option of honoring a family member by making a tribute gift to your charity in the donor's will.
3. Share with the prospective donor some stories of those whose plans include tribute gifts to your charity.

That combination inspired those James surveyed to say they were just as likely to make a tribute gift in their wills as they would be to make an outright gift. Before the tribute gift strategy, respondents were much more likely to say they would make an outright gift rather than a planned gift. James said beginning with the family/friend connection is effective because "philanthropy is a social act using the mechanisms of family bonding."