Stations that have gone through the MGI sessions report feeling energized and ready to jump-start their major giving programs. We want to be sure to capture this enthusiasm and share any successes and new ideas. Do you have a major giving success story? By letting us tell your story on this page, you will encourage other stations to continue their major giving efforts. Simply write up your story and .

At the end of December of 2006, I received a check in the mail for $13,586 from a financial agent listing a Charitable Lead Trust in the name of a donor that has been on our files for nearly 25 years. This donor averaged gifts between $25-$65 during her membership. No contact had ever been made outside normal membership activity. I thought that this was a simply a bequest from her will that we now realized.

I called the financial agent to determine the details of where the donor would like the gift to be directed and if we could recognize her during an upcoming drive or in our newsletter. After a brief conversation regarding her desire to remain anonymous, the agent mentioned that this year's payment was prorated, that is why it was so small. After prodding a little more, I was told that we should expect fixed annual payments of $57,000 for the next 20 years. This is a non-revocable instrument that has listed our FM station as the beneficiary. The gift will total $1.14 million when it is realized.

It goes to show you that EVERY conversation donors have with your station is important. Good customer service at any level is key in establishing relationships to attract planned gifts. WNED plans on announcing this gift to the public at a long-time member event in late April.

Submitted by:
Jeffrey Bell
Director of Major Gifts
WNED

TITLE | Plant, Nurture and GROW!

GOALS | This year, primed with knowledge gained at DevCon and through the Major Giving Initiative (MGI), WHRO set out to make Planned Giving a vital element of our annual development efforts. Our Planned Giving goals for 2005-2006 were:

• To enlist a committee of professionals for a Planned Giving Advisory Committee
• To increase participation in the Legacy Society, established to recognize those who include WHRO in their estate plans
• To grow WHRO's endowment fund

In order to meet these goals, staff and Board jointly determined that our Planned Giving program needed three key elements to succeed:

• Dedicated and enthusiastic volunteer leadership
• Increased and focused marketing efforts
• Informed and enthusiastic staff leadership

PROCESS | We asked a committed Foundation Board member, who named WHRO in his estate plans in 1998, to lead our Planned Giving Advisory Committee. This committee, representative of the large geographic region served by WHRO, includes two attorneys, two estate planning professionals, an investment banker, and a business partner. Committee members then enlisted other professionals to meet with prospects at WHRO on an as needed basis — to answer questions and provide guidance — at no cost.

WHRO has participated in the Visions newsletter program for many years and sent nearly 800 donors and planned giving prospects a brochure detailing giving at year-end, along with the Winter Visions newsletter package. We also increased our planned giving outreach efforts in print and on-air. Every FY06 issue of the bi-monthly WHRO Member Guide (distribution 30,000) included print ads based on PBS' on-air planned giving spots alongside a listing of Legacy Society members and special mentions of newly received planned gifts. On-air promotion consisted primarily of PBS-produced planned giving spots, which aired 688 times on WHRO TV-15 during FY06. With guidance from Planned Giving/Development staff, on-air traffic moved planned giving spots to strategic time slots to better reach a variety of viewers, including our senior citizen audience.

IN FY06, WHRO introduced a complementary component to on-air TV and radio campaigns: new and renewing members were encouraged to consider an additional $1 gift to WHRO's endowment fund. We had an incredible response — over 70% participation during pledge drives, with some individuals donating significantly more specifically for the endowment. To further extend outreach, development staff instituted a "road show" plan at select retirement communities, featuring a prominent local WHRO radio personality and engaging seniors on a personal level. These included music education, trivia and planned giving components. The Planned Giving Advisory Committee and staff chose a customized estate planning brochure to distribute at donor events and to prospects on a by-request basis — and committee members volunteered to distribute brochures to professional colleagues with their own personalized cover letter. Online marketing efforts included enhanced and detailed planned giving pages on WHRO's website, with detailed gift type information for all manner of planned gifts and appropriate staff contact information, and saw nearly 1,000 site visits in the second quarter.

Planned giving inquiries grew 62% while Legacy Society membership expanded 12% (and included a $250,000 Charitable Remainder Trust). Legacy Society members were invited to all major donor events. WHRO received five bequests in FY06, including a $30,000 bequest from a member whose lifetime giving was $1,628; and the station's single largest bequest ever, $2,249,362 from a $35 annual member whose giving lapsed during the last decade of his life. As a result of these bequests, the WHRO endowment quadrupled.

RESULTS | We learned that every donor today should be treated as tomorrow's potential legacy giver, and that hidden gems can be found throughout our donor base. We will build on this next year with an effort to uncover potential prospects through prospect screening with GG&A, add pull-out inserts to our Member Guide for select mailings, and make personal calls to follow up on all inquiries while stewarding the Legacy Society membership today. Two bequests for FY07 have already been identified.

IMPACT | These successes made a positive difference on Board and staff understanding of the incredible value of planned giving and an active, funded planned giving program. Committed volunteer leadership, increase marketing efforts, and dedicated planned giving staff are instrumental to a successful planned giving program for any station. Plant the planned giving seed, nurture the community of supporters, and watch the planned giving results grow!

In summer, 2005, I called a trust officer about an annual gift we receive from a trust he manages. During the conversation, he remarked that it was funny that I had called at this moment, for he was working on the estate of another client who wanted to include WPT in her will for a rather large bequest, approximately $300,000. He asked for information, which I sent him, but he was unwilling to share the donor's name.

Two months later, Diane Agans, our major gift officer, called the trust officer to invite him and his still anonymous client to a station event in their area. They agreed, giving us the opportunity to meet the donor and the trust officer privately before the event. She was honored and impressed to be invited. A few weeks later, the trust officer advised us that her will had been finalized and that WPT stand to receive $500,000 in this donor's estate. Our gesture of inviting her to our event increased the expected gift by $200,000!

But we learned another lesson from this interaction. In researching the donor, we learned that she has contributed many small gifts to WPT over more than 30 years. We also learned that she had requested information about including us in her will in the past, but that, after mailing her a packet of information, we have failed to follow up. With the help of our MGI consultant, we have reworked our communications procedures to take advantage of such opportunities in the future.

Submitted by:
Jon Miskowski
Director of Development
WPT

2005 PBS DevCon Award Winner: TPT

"With what I got, I made a living. With what I gave, I made a life."

Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) planned giving donor Mark Welter plans to have the above epitaph engraved on his headstone. Welter is one of six donors from around the country selected to tell his story on :30 and :60 second CPB-funded planned giving spots distributed to all PBS stations. An educator for over 40 years, Welter's support of TPT is his way of saying thank you for invaluable video resources he's used in the classroom. Not only has Welter included TPT in his will, but due to excellent stewardship, he has also completed two Charitable Gift Annuities with TPT over the last three years. With the broadcast of his planned giving spots on TPT and the placement of corresponding print ads TPT Magazine, an unforeseen blessing has occurred: Welter has heard from grateful, past students who are thanking him for unforgettable learning experiences in his classroom. What Mark Welter has given has paid him back in ways he never anticipated!

TPT's ten years of consistent, tenacious planned giving effort focusing on strategic planning, effective marketing, stewardship, customer service and internal and external partnerships has paid back in ways we never anticipated either. Within the past 18 months, TPT has received: 1) a $361,000 bequest from a childless widow of a Honeywell executive, 2) the final distribution of a $450,000 bequest from a single woman who lived modestly in a home with no air conditioning and worked for 30 years as a secretary at Texaco (and who wisely invested in Medtronic stock!) and 3) estate gifts of over half a million dollars from a woman who was an underwriter of The Charlie Rose Show, an original TPT Program Club member and TPT volunteer.

Twin Cities Public Television's strategic plan includes a comprehensive marketing plan focusing on on-air, print, direct mail and events. On-air planned giving messages run throughout the year via 15-second "billboards" which highlight three donors who either included TPT in their estate plan or who have made provisions in their estate plan for a future gift to TPT. In addition, four times a year, :30 and :60 second locally or nationally produced bequest or locally produced charitable gift annuity spots air in heavy rotations throughout the schedules of both tpt2 and tpt17 (VHF and UHF channels). Regularly placed planned giving ads appear in three different print mediums: each issue of TPT's member magazine, and monthly trade-out ads in two publications geared toward baby boomers (Stress Free Living) and an older demographic (Good Age). The Visions estate planning newsletter is mailed out to 600 planned giving prospects and donors three times a year and our own in-house development newsletter, The Insider, which features a planned giving article and/or donor story in each issue is mailed to 1800 people three times each year.

Events throughout the year offer opportunities for cultivation of planned giving prospects as well as stewardship of current planned giving donors. This past year, 8 Almanac Evenings provided donors and prospects the opportunity to see public television in action. Guests were given an overview of station activities by TPT's President or COO, experienced sitting in the studio and control room for TPT's live, weekly public affairs program Almanac, and enjoyed dessert and a Q&A with the show's Producer following the broadcast. TPT's Program Club, currently in its sixth year, now offers both morning and afternoon Program Club meetings on the last Thursday of each month between May and November. Donors and prospects met at the station to discuss a TPT/PBS program following a brief presentation by a TPT guest speaker who might talk about a new, national PBS production in the pipeline or who might acquaint guests with the magic of TV lighting. Participation in the morning Program Club meeting now ranges from 20-30 people (up 30-40% from last year) and the afternoon session regularly draws between 25 and 35 people. From December through April, the TPT/PBS Program Club goes offsite to Eaglecrest Terrace, a nearby senior center, reaching 15-25 seniors each month.

A successful new stewardship and cultivation event added this year will be offered again in FY06: the First Look Lunch. At this event last spring, TPT's President provided an overview of station activities followed by commentary and clips of upcoming programs. For the past four years, TPT has also hosted a spring recognition luncheon for Visionary Society Members — those who have included TPT in their estate plans. Last year the event featured Mystery and Masterpiece Theatre Executive Producer Rebecca Eaton and this year the special guest speaker was Jim Lehrer. New this year was an evening reception at the home of one of TPT's board members with Jim Lehrer as the special guest. This event was so successful that a past Board Member has agreed to host a dinner in his home this September with one of the hosts of TPT's award winning, weekly public affairs series Almanac.

The most exciting innovation in TPT's Planned Giving program this past year was the partnership forged between the Planned Giving staff and the Local Production staff. A new local production initiative involved the creation of two new 30 minute history programs focusing on two river town communities outside the metropolitan Twin Cities: Stillwater, MN and Red Wing, MN. In conjunction with the Executive Producer of the programs, the Planned Giving Staff developed a series of questions designed to elicit ideas about historical events, topics, individuals and locations within these communities in order to assist in the research of these productions. Letters including these questions were mailed out to TPT members in each community who were giving $100 or more annually to the station and to members who were good planned giving prospects according to data obtained from the station's Blackbaud membership screening overlay. In Red Wing, 28 donors giving $100 or more annually and 206 donors who were highly rated planned giving prospects received letters. These letters generated 28 email, telephone or written responses. Eighty-four letters were mailed out to Stillwater members giving $100 or more annually and 468 letters were mailed to residents who were good planned giving prospects. Forty-seven responses resulted from the Stillwater mailing. The information obtained from these responses was passed on to the Local Production staff and the Planned Giving staff sent a hand-written thank you note to each person who responded. The Planned Giving staff also met over coffee or lunch with 14 individuals in Red Wing to offer thanks for the support of the project and met with 8 people in Stillwater.

These meetings enabled Planned Giving staff to qualify these supporters as planned giving prospects and resulted in a new Studio Society member for the station (Studio Society members are donors giving $1,000 or more annually). In addition, TPT hosted a lunch in Red Wing for over 40 community, business, civic and social leaders to generate additional ideas for the program. This meeting not only resulted in additional ideas, but also generated an $6,000 underwriting grant for the Red Wing Program from a Red Wing company. Conversations with Stillwater companies resulted in $5,000 in underwriting support for the program focusing on Stillwater. As part of on-going cultivation efforts with these individuals, all Stillwater and Red Wing donors who assisted us with the research for these local productions have been invited to two upcoming Almanac evenings: one designated just for Red Wing residents (42 people are coming!) and one designated just for Stillwater residents (38 people will be joining us). The overall 05 planned giving goal this year was to add twenty new Visionary Society members to the Visionary Society roster. By implementing a strategic plan focusing on on-air, print, direct mail and event marketing focused on both cultivation and stewardship — as well as creating an innovative partnership with TPT's Local Production Department, TPT was able to not only meet but surpass its goal and welcome 21 new members to Twin Cities Public Television's Visionary Society. In addition, planned giving revenue increased dramatically from $540,401in 04 to $1,030,654.30 in FY05 — a 91% increase.

Persistent follow through on a portfolio of diversified cultivation and stewardship activities enabled Twin Cities Public Television to surpass the 1 million dollar mark in planned giving revenue for the first time in Twin Cities Public Television's history.

2005 PBS DevCon Award Winner: WNET

This year Thirteen/WNET saw record numbers of planned gift commitments (103); new Legacy Society members (88); and total dollars committed by new revocable arrangements ($19 million)! We also had another good year for charitable gift annuity contracts (21) and we had nearly a 10% increase in the number of inquiries for planned giving information (545). Membership in the Legacy Society increased by more than 22% in FY05 to a new high of 432. The total new funds received from bequests/trusts, outright gifts and irrevocable commitments to benefit our endowment totaled $4,303,277, a 19% increase from FY04.

What made this year such an unusually good one for revocable arrangements was the leadership roles taken by the station's most devoted supporters. Early in the year, a Board of Trustees member promised a $1 million dollar planned gift commitment if three other members of the Board would make similar commitments of $1 million. Three Board members met this challenge very quickly, so the same Board member made a second $1 million challenge and three more Trustees stepped forward for a total of $8 million in new commitments from our Trustees alone. Another trustee signed the first planned giving appeal to WLIW21 members and incoming president of the Friends of Thirteen Board, Edward Mapp, proved to be a tireless planned giving promoter. Ed appeared in spots for Thirteen and for other PBS stations, sent gift annuity appeals to longtime Thirteen members, and to the Friends Board. The month of his appeal set a record for gift annuities and there were two new commitments from his board. In addition, one donor made arrangements for a large testamentary remainder trust and two other donors made revocable commitments of $1 million or more.

In addition to the regular broadcast spots featuring tips from director of planned giving David Clough, we now air spots recognizing estates that have made large gifts over the past few years. We have scheduled these around programs popular with certain demographics to remind viewers of the impact made by bequests to Thirteen. We have also created new marketing pieces that profile one viewer whose estate made a significant bequest. These new pieces use the tag line "Lillian Cohen loved her Thirteen as much as you love yours" and have portraits of familiar PBS faces with Miss Cohen standing in front of them. We are using this design on the self-mailing response piece that goes into all acknowledgments and as a full page ad in the station's monthly program guide. In all of our marketing, we continued to promote our new planned giving website and the online gift annuity calculator. The number of visits to the planned giving website increased from 1,160 in FY04 to 5,998 in FY05! Tens of thousands of members and prospects continue to receive Fall, Winter and Spring planned giving newsletters. Again this year, we made a special effort to promote gifts of stocks. A letter with transfer instructions was sent to previous stock donors and an on-air spot encouraging stock gifts ran frequently in November and after December's pledge. The # of stock gifts rose 17%. They had risen 15% in FY04.

We sponsored several events in FY05, both to recognize existing members and to cultivate new ones. 45 people, new prospects and their guests, attended an October estate planning seminar conducted by a local attorney. In May, we had a good turnout of new prospects for a presentation by David Clough and an update from the director and associate director of our education department on the important ways they work with teachers and students to broaden the educational impact of our programming. A few of these prospects became Legacy Society members. The Legacy Society has now become too large to accommodate at one event, so we have added a second recognition lunch. In November, Robert McNeill was the main speaker at our Fall Legacy Society Lunch attended by approximately 100 people. At the Spring luncheon, the creator and producer of our series American Masters spoke to members about the past and future of the popular show. In January, we celebrated a beloved Legacy Society member's 90th birthday.

This fall, we implemented a new bequest database system (BIPS) which helps us to track the status of our estates in probate, and generate reports for gifts received and expected. In addition, BIPS now helps us track the bequest type and the value of future commitments made by current, living member of our Legacy Society. Along with entering all the existing information on these future bequests, we took the further step of sending out a very carefully worded Member Survey. The survey allowed our Legacy Society members to volunteer new information on the nature of the arrangements they have made for Thirteen, and important contact information for their next of kin or attorney to help us follow up estates in probate in the future. Most members provided this information willingly and, in some cases, sharing these details solidified the commitments they have made to the station. With the addition of Target America, we can now segment our donor base to improve results from direct mail. In particular, this will allow us to target mailings and events to donors based on the type of assets they hold. We hope this will yield results next year.

Pioneer Public Television Receives $100,000 Estate Gift

Pioneer Public Television covers over forty rural counties in western Minnesota, northern Iowa and eastern South Dakota. The invitation to participate in the Major Giving Initiative came at a time of declining membership and a struggle with debt service. Our decision to get involved has proved profitable these past two years.

Early in our process of defining our Mission/Vision/Values and identifying prospects, a letter was submitted to the estate trust of a deceased member. We were pleasantly surprised to receive a $15,000 gift in August 2004.

In January of 2005 we began urging major and planned gifts in virtually every communication form at our disposal. This included some 3-minute messages that air to better explain our case.

Imagine our shock when we opened the envelope this year to find a gift of $100,000! This represents the largest individual gift Pioneer has ever received in our 40-year history.

There is little doubt that the change in attitude, examination of services, improved systems and enthusiastic support of everyone connected with the organization played a part in this wonderful (and greatly needed) gift.

Submitted by:
Glen T. Cerny
President/General Manager
Pioneer Public Television

WGBY Uses Planned Giving Spots to Secure Gift

WGBY customized the new planned giving spots that were sent out on April 1. We started them in our rotation last week. This morning, I got a call from a donor. He has been a mid-level donor for 20 years. He said that WGBY is about the only station that he and his wife watch. He started seeing the spots last week. He said he was so moved by them that he wanted to find out how he could provide for WGBY in his will!

Submitted by:
Dawn Faucher
WGBY Public Television

Lakeland Public TV Secures Two Endowment Gifts

Lakeland Public Television (located in Bemidji/Brainerd Minnesota) began with the MGI project in March of 2004. Our station has approximately 4500 members. We have 84 individuals who currently contribute $300 or more. When we started our program just over five years ago, we had 14 individuals contributing $300 or more.

The major donor work is primarily done by the Director of Development. This responsibility is added to all the other job responsibilities. The time is limited, so we've tried to be very efficient with our process.

Our initial focus has been to set up a cultivation strategy. We began using a system that was suggested by Jim Lewis when he was here in June. Rather than doing a 50% effort with a lot of people, we decided to give 100% effort with 20 people. We put them on this cultivation sheet and gradually started working with the contacts as well as determining when the individuals would be ready to make a gift.

Lakeland Public Television recently established its endowment. We are utilizing the endowment to jumpstart our major donor giving. In the last two weeks, we have completed two "official" asks. The result has been a $25,000 and $10,000 endowment commitment. The plan is to begin doing an average of one official ask per week as we work through those who have been on the cultivation schedule.

We are very pleased with the results and look forward to meeting our goal of $120,000 in endowment commitments this year. For a station of our size and given the fact that this is added on top of our other responsibilities, this is a good goal!

Submitted by:
Deb McGregor-Pfleger
Assistant General Manager and Development Director
Lakeland Public Television