Planned Giving Conversations for Portfolio Managers

Through the K-12 Schools lens

A development director managing a school's top donor relationships often finds the legacy conversation fits naturally at the close of a capital campaign, once the current pledge has been made and thanked, exactly the later-stage timing this module recommends rather than the ask itself. A blended ask, current gift for the building plus a bequest for the endowment or financial aid fund, lets a family who cannot stretch further in cash still do more than a single gift would allow, which matters where family finances are already stretched by tuition itself. The portfolio legacy review, run against a small school's handful of top families, usually surfaces very few names, but the ones it finds are often families whose children graduated years ago and have simply never been asked.