Virtual Giving Planned Giving Websites

Why the Web?

• The Internet is becoming so pervasive, and so important, that leaders of institutions large and small are realizing that they must re-think their game plan in order to remain competitive.
• For many today, if you do not exist online, you simply do not exist.
• Your prospects are on the Internet. Now is the time to meet them there. Seniors use the Internet more than their younger counterparts and are the fastest growing sector of the PC-purchasing public.
• The Web is an exciting medium. It represents a fresh channel through which you and your prospects can communicate.
• A planned giving website educates your prospects, showcases your donors and streamlines your information gathering process.
• A planned giving website helps you close more and larger gifts faster and easier.
• Your website serves as a brochure. When visiting a prospect, you can print out relevant pages from your website and include them as a leave-behind in a presentation folder with a personal illustration of gift benefits. Conversely, prospects visiting your site can print out pages they choose as a take-away.
• Your website also enables you to send specific information to a particular prospect. Via email, you can send them the URL for the website page that addresses a certain question they have, for example, or that discusses the particular gift that is right for them.
• Direct mail marketing is expensive (especially if it is not read) and is lost in a sea of junk mail. Your prospects are inundated and resistant. But when they visit your website voluntarily, on their own time, they will give you their undivided attention.
• While your website can be updated in real time and kept current, expensive print materials can become outdated within months or weeks. Internet marketing is superseding print marketing by keeping costs down.