Tell 3 stories ... then shut up
File under: Planting the bequest seed
Tell 3 quick stories
... then shut up
Here's Dr. Russell James' favorite technique for bringing up the tricky topic of "a gift in your will"
The Q&A at our bequest webinar lasted 3.5 hours. One highlight from the transcript...
Donna asks this question. "Our charity supports young children in rural Malawi. Residents at a local retirement village in my community have shown strong interest in our work, organizing fundraising and attending my presentation. What are effective and respectful ways to have individual conversations in person with these engaged residents about legacy giving?"
Dr. Russell James (lawyer, professor, etc.), our guest expert, answered: "Here's a strategy that I like to call the Four-S method. That stands for three stories and then shut up. So what might that sound like?
"I'm here as a professor at Texas Tech. Suppose you were an alumnus of the school, and we were talking.
"Well, I'm going to share three stories. What's going to come up is what's new at the university.
STORY #1:
"I might say something like, you know, well, we're excited about the basketball season. We're ranked right now number 22 in the country, and I got a great coach, and so hoping that we'll be even better by the time the tournament comes around.
STORY #2:
"And there's a lot of growth on campus. You know, we're over 40,000 students now. There's a lot of construction on the west side. If you come in, you can see that....
STORY #3:
"And, oh, Jack Smith did something recently that you might be interested in. Now, did you know Jack? Because he graduated two years before you. No? Well, so Jack spent his whole career helping other people get their finances in order ... and he recently signed a new will that one day will provide a permanent scholarship for our financial planning students.
"Then, if you're having coffee together, you take a sip. BECAUSE Step #4 is for you to shut up.
"What you've done there is — in a very soft, safe way. — you've brought up the topic of a person who has included a gift in their will that has permanence, which reflects their life story.
"If you have reached somebody in a point in their lives when they're interested in continuing that conversation, you've been able to give an opening for them to do that.
"If you've reached somebody at a point in their lives when they're NOT interested in continuing that conversation, you'll hear some response like 'So those new buildings, where would I park if I wanted to see them?' Or something.
"And you might think that, Oh, it didn't work.
"But actually, you've done one of the most powerful things that we've yet tested, in shifting people's attitudes about a gift and a will ... and that is to share a living donor story about someone like the donor who has included a gift in their will that will make a permanent impact that reflects their life story.
"So you've done something really powerful there. So if I was trying to bring it up, that's a really soft, safe kind of way that creates a social norm, allows a person to continue the conversation, but there's no sort of a hard ask or pressure."
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