Fraser Green, Principal, Beth McDonald, Principal and Managing Partner, and Jose van Herpt, Principal, all The Flag Group have published Iceberg Philanthropy: Unlocking Extraordinary Gifts from Ordinary Donors. Canadian FundRaiser sought two reviews of the book, one from a direct marketer’s point of view, one from that of gift planners. This is the latter.

Let us state our bias at the outset. At the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, two of our leading values are Entrepreneurship and Partnership. We embrace integration and collaboration, and we are inspired by innovation, so we loved the ideas in this book. 

Essentially, this is a guidebook for how charities can secure a larger number of bequest gifts from their current regular donors. The book provides a comprehensive and practical approach to implementing its ideas in any size of organization. 

The traditional planned giving model is to engage prospects through one-on-one relationships with planned giving officers. While not discounting the immense value of this approach, the authors of Iceberg Philanthropy urge us to use direct marketing tools and techniques to engage a higher volume of donors in a deeper relationship with our charities. 

They provide helpful advice on how to identify the best bequest prospects from your charity’s ordinary donors (regular direct mail donors and monthly donors, for example) and then to engage them in a conversation about a bequest gift through focus groups, phone and direct mail. The ultimate goal, through the cultivation process, is to identify donors who have either arranged or are open to creating a bequest gift. 

Don’t let the size of the book or its breezy manner fool you. There is a huge volume of useful information packed inside. The energy and clarity of the writing style makes it an enjoyable read, but the education in donor motivation and engagement is thorough and the ideas are powerful. 

The book cuts to the chase in terms of what we need to do to engage and enliven donors. Many fundraisers are Baby Boomers, so a good part of the book aims to help them understand the older, Civic generation. Through original research and a lively romp through a dizzying array of popular psychology (keep a pencil handy, because one thing this book lacks is an index or resource section), we learn how the brain works, and how to use our knowledge to educate, influence and persuade donors. 

After quickly outlining the opportunity that the coming intergenerational “transfer of wealth” means to charities, the authors pose some interesting theories about the size of the Canadian direct response market and extrapolate how much charities are leaving on the table if they don’t inspire the typical direct response donor to include their charity in her legacy plans. 

This is a section we can see ourselves turning to again and again for reference to arguments for planned giving marketing. It introduces the concepts of planned giving to a wider audience, and makes a clear connection between long term loyal donors and subsequent bequests. The research and analysis provide references to make a compelling case to invest time and budget in planned giving marketing. 

The book places a terrific emphasis on engaging the prospect’s heart and mind regarding the impact of the bequest gift, and provides a challenge not only to us as planned giving fundraisers, but also to providers of planned giving education. We need to ensure that we keep a strong focus on engaging donors with the “why” of bequest giving, not just the “how”. 

The authors also provide some important, perhaps more advanced, topics in gift planning. In one chapter, they address how to respond to the two most common objections that people raise in response to a legacy gift ask. According to the authors’ work with hundreds and hundreds of donors in focus groups over the years, the two objections are that they are not rich enough to provide a planned gift and that they need to provide for their family. This is invaluable because it gives fundraisers the tools to answer these objections through written material, before they are even asked. 

Also, the authors pose a problem that has perplexed us as much as “the chicken and the egg”. They point out that charities continue to receive the bulk of their bequests from people who do not inform the charity of their intentions while they are alive. The fact is that many people consider their will a private matter, and will never tell their beneficiaries exactly what is in it. This being the case, how do we measure the success of all the work we’ve done to encourage people to consider a bequest, except by waiting until we hear from their lawyer or executor? 

The authors did a (fairly informal) survey of about 30 charities across the country, and determined that about 8.4% of bequesters had notified the charity beforehand. The authors make the case, therefore, that one way to count results is to use 8.4% as a benchmark. It’s easiest to round it up to 10% and then multiply each bequest intention that you do hear about by 10 to give you the total number of people who probably DO have you in their will. 

As we’ve said, we love this book. In fact, we plan to discuss it with the other members of our major and planned giving team. That being said, we do have a few quibbles. The authors could have placed greater emphasis on how to engage planned giving donors once they have been identified. We don’t necessarily agree with the assertion that direct mail donors prefer to communicate with us primarily through the mail. 

We think that there could be more emphasis on face-to-face discussion with planned giving donors once they have been identified through direct marketing techniques. In our experience, these discussions can lead to larger and more tailored bequest gifts. We also wondered if there should have been more discussion of the varying levels of cost associated with the use of the various direct marketing techniques proposed. This would help charities as they assess options to pursue. 

We were really impressed that the book isn’t a subtle ploy to gain new business. In fact, the book may prove most useful to those organizations who can’t afford to hire a consultant to do the work for them. 

The authors share their considerable expertise on how to communicate effectively with donors, in a chapter devoted to 21 communications tips. The chapter on understanding the human mind draws together many modern theories to bolster the authors’ own experience, concluding that how you communicate is as important as what you communicate. 

Another section emphasizes that each organization is unique, so your approach and ability to execute will be influenced by the culture and resources of your organization. In this section, the authors pose some hard but essential questions to assess whether your organization is suited to, and ready for, Iceberg Philanthropy.

So, our final advice: don’t wait until your ship is sunk by letting this Iceberg pass you by. The book is a great read, and will be a common reference for fundraisers for many years to come.