Current News and Views in Philanthropy

The National Committee on Planned Giving’s (NCPG) research report, Planned Giving in the United States 2000: A Survey of Donors, profiled donors to gain a greater understanding of why donors made planned gifts. The study found that 11% of households had made some type of planned gift and another 1 in 4 households were considering doing so.

Charitable bequests were the most popular type of planned gift. Eight percent had included a charitable bequest in their will. Charitable intent and the desire to help a charity fulfill its mission were the most important motivations for making a charitable gift. Here are some of the motivations given for making a bequest and the percentage of respondents who cited them:

Desire to support the charity 97%
Ultimate use of the gift by the charity 82%
Desire to reduce taxes (income or estate) 35%
Long-range estate planning issues 33%
Create a lasting memorial for self or loved ones 33%

Encouragingly, the study found that more people are making planned gifts than ever before, and for those who are doing so through their will, the increase was up 40% in the last eight years, the last time NCPG conducted such a survey.