Donor Relations

At the end of the year, donors may be frazzled by holiday planning and leave their charitable giving to the last minute. To help ensure that their end of year gifts count for the current tax year, here’s a primer on how to determine gift date. We’ve also included a digital checklist as an additional resource from our experts at Foundation Source with the most important milestones for private foundations throughout the calendar year—including key dates for year-end giving.

This document is derived from one we created for a consulting client. In conversations with that client we wanted to ensure that they were augmenting an excellent marketing effort with on-the-ground cultivation and solicitation. To add to the ranks of a bequest society, a planned giving officer often needs volunteers to help, and volunteers are more willing if they are informed enough to be comfortable. The best volunteer solicitors are ones who have made a gift, but there is still a gulf between making a gift and feeling prepared to ask another to do the same.