Knowledge and Resource Center

PEJE resources to get you started:

• PEJE’s Endowment and Legacy Readiness Quiz for Schools: Is your school ready to begin a successful Endowment and Legacy campaign?  Take PEJE’s Readiness Quiz to find out.  The more items you check off, the closer you are to succeeding in your campaign!
• Top 10 Tips for Building a Successful Endowment Program:  Written by Michael Friedman, Senior Vice President, Planned Giving and Endowment at THE ASSOCIATED, Baltimore, Maryland, and presented at the February 29, 2012 Russel Family Generations Baltimore training.
• PEJE’s Endowment and Legacy 101: Through a multitude of vehicles, each with its own tax and philanthropic benefits, your donors may make current, life-income, or after-life gifts to benefit your school.  Depending on how each gift is structured, the gift may benefit the school outright or be used to fund an endowment, providing a permanent source of support.  Gifts of all kinds can be used to fulfill a pledge to the school, and can be paid out over various time-tables, depending on the nature of the gift.   
• Endowment and Legacy Gift Pyramids: The pyramids below were originally created for Generations, a three-year pilot program for building endowment and legacy. During the three years, participating schools are expected to raise $4,000 in endowment funds per student, with a goal of raising $20,000 in endowment funds per student over the course of 10 years. 

• • Pyramid 1:  Goal of $600,000 raised at a school with 150 students
  • Pyramid 2:  Goal of $800,000 raised at a school with 200 students
  • Pyramid 3:  Goal of $1,200,000 raised at a school with 300 students
  • Pyramid 4:  Goal of $1,600,000 raised at a school with 400 students
  • Pyramid 5:  Goal of $2,000,000 raised at a school with 500 students
  • Pyramid 6:  Goal of $4,000,000 raised at a school with 1000 students

Video Library

Welcome to the Endowment & Legacy Institute Video Library. Beginning November 7, and continuing for the next 3 weeks,  we will release a short, instructional clip taped at the first Endowment & Legacy Institute training in Baltimore. The videos, which will go live at noon, provide all sorts of good advice about getting into—and winning—the endowment game.

Learn how your development team can come together to talk about solicitations and handling multiple concerns of a potential donor. It’s all in Techniques for Successful Endowment Solicitations.

Watch Addressing Loyalties to Multiple Schools and learn techniques that will help you speak to donors' concerns and more successfully engage your prospects and philanthropists alike.

The short video, Asking for an Endowment Gift: Timing Matters, features a group of lay leaders, Heads of School, and development professionals from some of Baltimore’s day schools. Together, they discuss the vital issue of how to approach donors in a planned, thoughtful way.

Watch Generations: A Strategic Approach to Endowment Building. This video will give you some great insight into Generations, the four-community endowment and legacy program.

The first installment, Endowment Building Doesn’t Cannibalize Other Giving, will help your school incorporate endowment into your development plan. If done well, an endowment campaign will enhance your donor giving and help to sustain your school.

Tools For You to Use

• Making the Case: Before you begin to cultivate and solicit your donors, you need to hone your case for giving. Why should a donor invest in you?  Here are samples from two schools who have launched endowment campaigns.
  
  • The Agnon School Endowment Program Together We Can Make A Difference And Ensure Tomorrow's Excellence
    • The Agnon School Brochure
  • Sinai Akiba Academy Making the Case
    • Brochure
    • PowerPoint
• Endowment and Legacy Campaign Workbook: This tool was designed for the Generations pilot program, which is a three year program with a ten year goal of raising $20,000 in endowment and legacy funding per student.
  • • Endowment and Legacy Campaign Workbook Template: Please download the template and adapt it to help your school team set and reach realistic benchmarks within three years, as you proceed on your journey toward a successful ten year campaign.
    • Sample Campaign Workbook: This Campaign Workbook is currently in use by a Generations school.
      
• Moves Management Grid: To ensure you are making best use of your time and your lay leaders’ time while staying organized and focused, we have created this tool. Intended to be aligned with your Campaign Workbook, the Moves Management Grid will allow you to keep track of conversations and connections with each donor and foster continual engagement, a proven strategy to increase philanthropy.
  • • Sample Moves Management Grid: This Moves Management Grid is currently in use by a Generations school.
    • Moves Management Template:   Please adapt and use this Moves Management Grid.

Articles and Publications

Gift Acceptance Policies

• Pledge Agreement for Individual Donor (Downloadable for your school)
• Gift Acceptance Policies
• Creating Gift Acceptance Policies
• Understanding and Drafting Non-Profit Gift Acceptance Policies (Article appears here with the permission of the author Kathryn W. Miree, J.D.)

Investment Policies

• Planned Giving: Benefits to Your Donors- A quick benefits’ guide for your endowment and legacy donors when they make a gift to your school.  Adapted with permission from Sheridan Wealth Advisors.
• 18 Sample Due Diligence Questions
• Non-Profit Investment Policies Sample
• Investment Policies
• Principles of Nonprofit Investment Management

Tools to Help Your School Create a Legacy Program

• Easy Ways to Create Your Legacy at Beth Tfiloh
• Kadima Legacy Society

Additional Resources

• Synagogues and Other Jewish Nonprofits: Tackling Planned Giving Yet? (Article co-written by and published with the permission of Robert I. Evans, Generations Baltimore Coach)
• Twelve Insights About Giving in 2012 (Article co-written by and published with the permission of Robert I. Evans, Generations Baltimore Coach)
• Charitable Gift Annuity (Brochure written by and published with the permission of William D. Samers, Vice President, Planned Giving & Endowments, UJA-Federation of New York)
• A Ready-to-Use Digest of the Jewish Legacy Forum
• Model Standards of Practice for the Charitable Gift Planner, on the Chesapeake Planned Giving Council’s website
• From Theory to Practice: Three Successful Models to Build Endowment (Article appears here with the permission of the author Kathryn W. Miree, J.D.)
• Sample Development Policy, which includes endowment and legacy as part of a school’s plan