"ACU works very closely with RuffaloCODY on Annual Fund calling. In spite of this, we were concerned about having them call our Planned Giving prospects, because after all, they're some of our most loyal donors. Our concerns were quickly put to rest.

We are very pleased with the outstanding results and equally pleased with the quality of phone calls. RuffaloCODY did a great job of handling our donors with care."

Phil has made several presentations about Planned Giving ID, including presentations to the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) and the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation. Here's what he said about working with RuffaloCODY:

"Many of your annual fund donors may be excellent Planned Giving prospects. That's what I found when I began to cultivate one-to-one relationships with some of our long-time annual fund donors. What I have found is that donors who have been loyal givers over time are sending a clear message that they have a deeper commitment to our foundation.

At Gundersen Lutheran Medical Foundation, we now look at the giving patterns of our annual fund donors, which helps us identify donors who are interested in Planned Giving opportunities. We work with RuffaloCODY to call our multi-year annual fund donors. They have a meaningful conversation and conduct a short survey to assess the donor's ability, interest, and willingness to make a planned gift to Gundersen. Our development officers then follow-up personally with interested donors.

Even if we learn that a donor is not interested in Planned Giving, by talking to them, they know that we care about their involvement in Gundersen. On the other hand, if an annual fund donor is interested in Planned Giving, we are giving them the opportunity to become involved in the ways they want.

This is a great way to treat our good friends of the Foundation."

"Without a very good information system to identify and qualify planned giving prospects, our goals in working with RuffaloCODY were to increase the number of qualified planned giving prospects and to discover new individuals who had already named UT in their estate plans, but weren't yet on our radar screen. We're very excited about the results - the Planned Giving ID program accomplished these goals and more. Our data are now more accurate, and we were able to make quality contact with our alumni - donors or not.

RuffaloCODY's team approach is very effective, and virtually every stage of the process provides information you can use to build a stronger Planned Giving development program.

The callers exuded warmth and attention when speaking with our alumni. In fact, one caller reached a gentleman who was pictured as a UT student in a 1940s photo we used as our pre-call postcard. He said one of the women in the picture was, at the time, his wife-to-be, and that he'd been waiting for our call and even asked for additional copies of the postcard to give to his family. What a great story! On top of that, he told us that his bequest intentions included the University! It would have taken a long time to find that much information on our own. That's how useful this program can be."

"We got tremendous positive feedback from our donors. And, we're very happy with the quality and level of qualification of the leads we received from RuffaloCODY.

They gathered a lot of information from our donors which we wouldn't have known. That helped us initiate quality conversations with our donors. And, during our subsequent follow-up calls, we were able to document several gift commitments."