Virtual Giving Planned Giving Websites

Several years ago I decided to develop a fresh approach to marketing planned gifts that emphasized the impact of each gift in the lives of University of Denver students and faculty. I also wanted to integrate the various components of our marketing plan, from our gift planning website to direct mail and ads in the University of Denvers alumni magazine. I believed that an integrated marketing approach based on consistent messaging using varied communications strategies would produce maximum long-term results.

Going with Virtual Giving was the first step. I felt that their gift planning websites were uniquely focused on engaging potential donors in an interactive learning process that helped them learn enough about gift planning options to decide if they wanted more information. I didnt want to tell visitors to our website everything they could possibly want to know about gift planning options. I wanted to give them a user friendly way of exploring the basics and then asking for more information.

Virtual Giving has done that and more. Theyre the centerpiece of our new integrated marketing plan. Theyve been a great proactive partner. And theyre helping us raise more money for the University of Denver and its students.

As part of our strategic plan to reinvent gift planning at the University of Pennsylvania in preparation for a capital campaign, we knew we had to come up with a more robust web presence that would allow us to serve all of the University’s schools and centers and their unique constituencies. At the same time, we realized that the site would require constant updates and refreshing, and that our staff needed to be focused on meeting with our prospects to reach our campaign goals. We gave VirtualGiving a tough challenge: they had to deliver three websites, one for the University as a whole, one for Wharton and one for Penn Medicine. They had to maintain the 'Penn look,' while giving each one a unique character of its own and content to match.  The VirtualGiving team was very easy to work with – plus they customized the sites to meet our complex needs.

We chose VirtualGiving because we found it had a unique quality of design and content which would distinguish the American Heart Association from other non-profit organizations. Specifically, the Legacy Planner is extremely user friendly and the site tools enable the donor to obtain as much information as needed to begin their legacy thought process. We are excited about our new "look and feel" with Virtual Giving and we are confident that we are ready for the next generation of planned giving donors!

Fresh, crisp, and delicious is how I would describe the approach of Virtualgiving.com. to developing a planned giving website.

When moving from a ponderous, text-heavy approach, the Gift Planning Group at the CU Foundation was delighted with VirtualGivings way of reframing issues to address donors underlying questions.

Good graphics, easy navigation, lots of space, short sentences, and variable font size make the site appealing, according to our donors.

At The ALS Association, we have an established national planned giving program. And to strengthen our presence on the Web, we opted for an established national planned giving provider. VirtualGiving met our needs in developing a truly customized planned giving website that reflects our mission, goals, and values. They are a truly professional team.

Virtual Giving made the creation of our Web site incredibly easy, and I am pleased with their service when we request changes.

My favorite feature of the site is Plan-a-gift®, which helps steer visitors to the best gift options based on their goals. It would have taken us hours of programming to create a similar element ourselves.

At Jefferson we have loyal alumni and grateful patients that are interested in giving back to us. When searching for a vendor for our planned giving website, we knew we needed a company that could relay information and "speak" to a variety of potential donors - coming from both from the University and the Hospital. We wanted someone who could explain the complexities of planned giving in a simple way, and not overwhelm our visitors.

After searching extensively, we chose Virtual Giving because their approach best suited our needs – they made the customized process easy, were extremely attentive to our requests, and they made the entire experience faster and more efficient. Having the website up to date with valuable information has made my job easier - I can focus all of my energy on soliciting prospective donors.

I use my planned giving website daily - but more importantly, so do my donors! In addition to marketing planned giving vehicles, my prospects access the website for more information – knowing that they can retrieve whatever information they need at whatever time of day (or night) they need it! I am continually pleased with the reaction from our website visitors – they are more receptive to my calls, and in general, I believe the asking/giving process is even easier for me!

I looked at several vendors and was impressed by your focus on planned giving websites – you don’t try to be all things to all people - and you grasped immediately what was important to our constituents.

It was very important that the site be "plug and play" so that we could concentrate our energies on our planned giving program and donors rather than taking on another project. Yet we did not want a bland generic product. It was imperative that the dedicated planned giving site be developed and maintained with the least possible effort by us, but also have a look and feel comparable to the other areas of the Exeter's web presence.

Finally, the ease of use was critical in making a choice – we wanted a website look that was easy to get around in – on all three points, Virtual Giving came out on top!

We are always looking for ways to improve our planned giving program. We wanted to create a practical on-line resource for our alumni and it didn't take long to recognize that VirtualGiving was our best choice for a partner. We looked at work they did for our peers (Exeter, Taft, St. Paul's) and other institutions and were convinced they could help us as well. Plus, when I spoke with my peers who were using VirtualGiving, I was impressed by their unanimously positive comments. They said it was a "no-brainer," and they were right!

We liked VirtualGiving's menu of options and the simplicity of their presentation but it was their emphasis on customization that ultimately won us over - we wanted a look and content that would totally distinguish our site from everyone else. They delivered on their promise, and more.

I never hesitate to recommend VirtualGiving to anyone I know looking to get more from their planned giving website.

Virtual Givings website format appealed to us because it is attractive and donor-friendly, besides being comprehensive in its presentation of planned giving information. We were able to customize it to blend seamlessly into our main Foundation website.

We agreed with Virtual Giving that a customized website helps makes the job of providing information to prospects and donors much easier, while allowing planned giving staff to focus on closing gifts. Virtual Givings concepts also help personalize the planned giving staff and make it simple to contact them.

At UConn, our experience with Virtual Giving has been very satisfying their staff has been a pleasure to work with. And, as part of our relationship, they provide us with invaluable ideas on a continuing basis.

In this day and age, nearly every organization should be cultivating planned gifts, and that is hard to do without a comprehensive web presence such as Virtual Giving offers. We are pleased with their high level of quality and service.

Our planned giving website is a very important tool for us, and just like our phone system, we use it every day. It was important for us to work with a vendor that met our needs, and yet at the same time advised us of what works and what doesn't. With VirtualGiving's help, we developed a site that's clean, friendly, easy to understand, and free of useless clutter that just distracts prospects. Not to mention, their service is just fantastic.

World Vision has been linking our donors with children in need for over 50 years, and has provided comprehensive gift planning services since 1959. So when we decided to establish a website for our donors to access Planned Giving information easily, our expectations were high. We wanted it professionally produced at a reasonable cost.

VirtualGiving met all our goals. Their writing is clear, accurate, and to the point. Their graphics are both elegant and exciting and reflect the character of World Vision. Navigation through the website is dynamic, moving the reader to consider a gift plan and then get in touch with my office.

VirtualGiving listened to us, produced a marketing tool that interpreted World Vision’s look and feel in new-technology format, and meanwhile allowed us to concentrate on fundraising. We are very pleased with both the product and with the company.

Planned Giving is a vital component to the Williams development program and we are all aware of the dynamic and expanding nature of gift planning to non-profits. Thus, it was important for us to have reliable website partners who were responsive to our needs and shared our goal of excellence. That’s why we chose VirtualGiving.

Williams is, first and foremost, donor sensitive. Ease of access and information that is clear, complete and helpful were the goals we set. These goals were met.

Like all of our initiatives, we are always working to expand our capacity to create better results. Learning how to learn together, teamwork, setting collective aspiration free is rewarding and fun. We are pleased VirtualGiving is part of our team and look forward to creating new innovations and an even better space for our alumni and friends.

I hired Viken and his firm VirtualGiving.com, to design my legacy planning Web-site. Im exceedingly proud of the product we built together for the Phi Beta Kappa Society and can speak with authority on their excellent product and customer service. At every step of the way, Viken and his team have provided sterling customer care and red-carpet treatment. They were excited to implement several ideas I brought to the table since they had never been done before in the planned giving world. Once executed, our site stands at the forefront of Legacy Planning Web design. No request was too large or too small. Everything was done within a day or so -- if not hours or minutes -- of receiving my request. I have attended several seminars where their products were featured by independent Web-site design experts and touted as the gold standard in this field. I have interviewed my counterparts at major universities who did hire them (more than once) for each of the schools unique school-specific web-sites and was told they would hire them again with out hesitation. I am thoroughly impressed with their exceptional work and have shared this with countless colleagues over and over again. Not only is he an exceptional spokesman for the industry, but I also respect his expertise and knowledge of what works and what does not. The proof is in the pudding and having either booked or signed pledges for a total of more than $2 million dollars in one years time and site traffic has exponentially increased.