One more in our series on our consultants as we celebrate our 15th year helping charities across Canada. Throughout her career, Jane Jamieson's work has been focused on small to medium sized charities. It has been rewarding - and challenging - working in a world that directly and profoundly effects local communities. Jane's approach is to make charities and professionals better at carrying out their mission!
In a continuation of PGgrowth’s 15th anniversary, this week’s podcast is all about Tracey Church. Tracey is a Senior Research Consultant at PGgrowth and one of the preeminent prospect researchers in Canada. In addition to her work with over 400 organizations, Tracey was a part-time faculty member at Western University for 15 years and also co-edited and co-authored “Prospect Research in Canada: An Essential Guide for Researchers and Fundraisers” (Civil Sector Press, 2016).
Join us as Ed and Tracey discuss how she started her career, how she first got involved with PGgrowth, and the importance of prospect research in the world of fundraising.
In this special episode, we shine a spotlight on Suzanne Bone, Senior Consultant at PGgrowth and a trailblazer in hospital foundation fundraising. With over three decades of leadership as the inaugural—and for 31 years, the only—CEO of the Foundation of Guelph General Hospital, Suzanne has built a legacy of progressive impact and fundraising success.
Join us as we sit down with Suzanne to reflect on her extraordinary career, the lessons she's learned along the way, and her invaluable insights into the evolving world of Planned Giving.
In this episode of The Planned Giving Pod, Ed Sluga continues the conversation sparked by last week's discussion with Ken Ramsay, diving deeper into the realities of working in planned giving.
Planned giving can often feel like a solitary pursuit, but it doesn’t have to be. Ed reminds us that the heart of this work is community, a shared space where fundraisers can lean on one another, exchange ideas, and find encouragement.
Whether you're just starting out or have years of experience, this episode is a meaningful reflection on the importance of building and belonging to a community that truly understands the unique challenges and rewards of planned giving.
In this thought-provoking episode, PGgrowth President and Co-Founder Ed Sluga revisits a critical question: Why are so many charities still struggling to embrace planned giving?
Back in 2017, PGgrowth launched an in-depth research initiative to understand how charities across the country were engaging with planned giving—an often-overlooked yet powerful source of revenue. Now, in 2024 and into 2025, we've gone back to the roots of that original survey, updating it and gathering fresh responses to see how things have evolved.
The findings? While planned giving remains a deeply untapped opportunity for sustainable funding, many organizations are actually stepping back from it.
Tune in as Ed reflects on what this means for the sector, why this revenue stream continues to be under utilized, and what your organization can do to avoid becoming a part of the trend—and instead, lead the way forward.
Navigating the professional pressure of raising funds for great causes is difficult. Yes, we feel a great sense of well being by working to advance a mission that helps our community. But with that comes great stress and pressure. There is help! Fundraisers are coming together and meeting to support each other. Building a community of support that understands - and does not increase - the stress a fundraiser is under is important. It can be a path to succeeding at being a professional fundraiser and being able to truly enjoy its benefits to your community and to you!
Enthusiastic promoter of planned giving and all around friend to everyone, Theresa Butler-Porter feels like she has always been a planned giving professional - she just didn't know it. Now, an expert in the field and much sought after mentor and speaker, Theresa takes some time to talk about her journey working in the field, what she has learned about herself and what others can do to 'lean in' and make it happen!
Peggy Killeen and I sit down and discuss the messages of planned giving - there are the old standards AND the NEW thinking around how to speak to donors. The most important additions are simple: not everyone is the same so your messages need to relate to known types of donors who make a gift (one size does not fit all!), and, remember, at the core of giving is the fact that it makes people happy. Add a little happy to your day today and have a listen!
From time to time, we mark important moments in the planned giving world with a discussion around the current state of this form of fundraising. We done it again. This time it is a way to look at the 15 years we have been working to raise the bar within the sector around planned giving. Joining me for this discussion are noted experts in the field Peggy Killeen, CFRE, Grant Monck, LL.B and Ken Ramsay, one of the 'founders' of planned giving as a profession in Canada. The conversation is honest - both in a positive and critical way - and offers both practical and strategic next steps for the sector and for your organization.
In our 15 years, PGgrowth has had as part of our team extraordinary leaders and experts in planned giving. This year, we will be taking the time to highlight these professionals. Peggy Killeen is a well known leader in the planned giving sector. Based in Montreal, her impact is national not only helping charities create and launch programs but also mentoring staff and inspiring donor engagement. At the core of her work is the understanding that anyone can become a philanthropist and that through planned giving we in the charitable sector can 'democratize' major giving - and its impact on charities, communities and Canadians. Her journey is unique in specifics but not unique in that her arrival in planned giving was not the original destination - but it has made all the difference.
In our 15 years, PGgrowth has had as part of our team extraordinary leaders and experts in planned giving. This year, we will be taking the time to highlight these professionals. First up is Grant Monck - leader in planned giving for 30 years, sector expert in blended gifts, a fixture both in British Columbia and across the country in leading best in practice programs. His journey to planned giving success, like many others, did not start in fundraising. He, like so many others, was drawn to working in the charitable sector by personal experience, thoughtful examination of the career he wanted to have - and being at the right place at the right time. Although his journey did not start in fundraising, through his time working with charities, mentoring organizational leadership and staff, inspiring volunteers and engaging with donors, Grant has helped to shape how we approach planned giving in Canada. His thoughts are both inspirational and practical.
In this second pod focusing on our webinar series Driving PG Forward from the Fall of 2023, Ken Ramsay - noted planned giving expert and data guru - gives one of the best arguments for understanding your organization's data and planned giving opportunity I have ever heard – and I have heard Ken talk about this many times before.
It is all about the gap.
The gap is the space between your current planned giving successes and your planned giving potential. Until you take the time to understand the true revenue potential that is within your stakeholder base, it will be difficult for your organization to chart the necessary path to maximize success. It is a fundamental next step after determining the characteristics of the type of program you should be operating. It will help drive your program forward.
The first of four pods excerpted from our webinar series in the Fall of 2023 titled DRIVING PLANNED GIVING FORWARD. This episode looks at determining organization type and what best practices are the correct ones to implement and follow. What does your organization need to consider when establishing a program? How do you measure success? It is where an organization must start to ensure predictable and sustainable planned giving growth and success.
In May of 2020, with the pandemic officially taking hold of all of our daily lives, PGgrowth held a Town Hall to examine fundraising in the ear of lock downs and economic unknowns. Now, 3 years later, we look at the after-effects of COVID, lessons learned - or not - and what to do so that your program is ready for the next economic down turn, whether it is caused by a pandemic, a bad economy or some other un-expected factors.
Working with charities across the country, we do find one common thread when professionals discuss their ability to - or inability to - launch a truly proactive program: leadership commitment. While the rational and the data continues to support proactive engagement of supporters to increase giving in the way, organizations continue to hesitate, missing the important leadership imperative to launch a program. In the end, this hesitation is simply a decision to 'leave money on the table'. In this discussion we hear from Doug Earle, current CEO of the West Park Hospital Foundation (Toronto) and former CEO of Fighting Blindness Canada about the leadership decisions and steps he took to launch a program and position his organization in transformational success in the area of fundraising.
This one is from the archives and firmly focused on the future. My colleague Katherine Blake is regularly talking about the coming transfer of wealth - one that we know of well in planned giving - and the fact that charities need to get involved now in planned giving or risk missing the opportunity. This reminded me of a conversation I had with Ken Ramsay a few years back. It was about the charitable giving circumstances of the time and how they had made that an important time for charities to launch a planned giving programs to ensure their future financial security. Everything old is new again and planned giving - accelerated by the pandemic - is entering another 'Golden Era'. For more Planned Giving Podcasts and to sign up for our regular updates, please go to www.pggrowth.com
Any marketing tactic to engage your donors about planned giving needs both a preparation and a follow up plan. Otherwise, the cost and work put into the initial contact is not only wasted, the trust you need with your donors so they will create a planned gift will be eroded or even lost. In this first episode of season 8, we will explore the basics of preparing for direct donor lead generation and the necessary 'next steps' to make the process worthwhile.
Why and how should your charity examine in a deep and meaningful way, its data and donor bases to find its best prospects for Planned Giving. Ken Ramsay brings his decades of experience leading programs asking hundreds of thousands of people across North America for Planned Gifts has provided him with a 'one-of-a-kind' knowledge and expertise in mining data for your best prospects, He is experience is unmatched and his insight is extraordinarily valuable to YOUR Planned Giving program.
Ed Sluga is joined again by planned giving thought leader Ken Ramsay as they discuss the most important asset of any organization's fundraising program - their data base. Using data effectively for the advancement of a planned giving program is fundamental to long-term and sustainable success. Ed and Ken discuss the rationale for regular data review and the steps necessary to use your data base to its fullest effect in your program.