Each year at the Practical Planned Giving Conference, Crescendo President Charles Schultz discusses the latest innovations. Innovations for 2014 include CresLite, CresPlus, CresVideo, BCL and CresPrint.
1. CresLite is the first planned giving software “on-the-go.” With CresLite you can run a gift annuity, unitrust, annuity trust or other gift planning illustration anywhere at any time from your browser using your PC or MAC, Android or Apple tablet. CresLite illustrations include the persuasive graphics of the desktop Crescendo program. You can save a PDF and print or e-mail it to a donor or professional advisor. CresLite is included with your GiftLegacy Pro subscription and is also available separately.
2. The Crescendo Plus presentation program has also moved online. GiftLegacy Pro users can now click on CresPlus and download persuasive PowerPoint seminars or donor presentations from the internet. Popular seminar choices include: the Provide and Protect seminar, How to Help Family seminar and the Farm Retirement Plan seminar. CresPlus is another added benefit with GiftLegacy Pro.
3. CresVideo— Crescendo’s Design Team has been busy updating the videos that appear on the GiftLegacy websites. There are video links in three different locations on the websites: The “How and What to Give” pages, the “Learn About Wills” page and the “Plan Your Will” page.
Readers can learn about wills and living trusts by watching a series of simple and diverse instructional videos, located on the “Learn About Wills” page. You can also view a step-by-step video tour of the online Wills Planner on the “Plan Your Will” page.
The third group of new videos are helpful and fun explanations of how and what to give. Readers will enjoy the animated explanations found on the “How to Give” and “What to Give” pages.
4. BCL— All charities should run an annual bequest campaign. To help get you started, we created a comprehensive bequest campaign launch, we call BCL, for all of our new GiftLegacy Pro subscribers. Using Adobe InDesign software, our Design Team will customize a 28-page wills guide, an insert or postcard, a trifold brochure, a mission page, an e-blast and an e-newsletter header. We will even upload these files to your CresManager Literature Section. Subscribers will be able to download native InDesign or PDF files, send them to a professional printer or use their desktop printer to produce the materials. What could be easier? The customized materials will reflect the branding, colors and image of your organization. You may also choose to upload these files to your website for your readers. For ideas regarding bequest campaign strategies, you will find five videos available in the “Wills Campaign Section” of the CresManager that give an overview and explanation of four strategies.
5. CresPrint— We understand gift planners are very busy people; mostly under-staffed, over-worked, and under-funded—but never unappreciated! We wanted to provide an easy, complete solution for the print marketing needs of organizations both big and small, and all those in-between.
To help get you started, we created BCL—a customized multichannel marketing campaign for bequests. Within the CresManager, we provide hundreds of royalty-free PDFs formatted to print from your desktop printer.
For those fortunate enough to have more resources, we provide hundreds of native InDesign files to customize and print using a professional printer.
Now, we have developed CresPrint—a simple-to-use online program that empowers you to easily customize print marketing materials on your schedule, within your budget. It is fast, easy, flexible and mobile, because it is online! We will be formally launching CresPrint by the end of the year. Upload your pictures, import your logo and include your corporate colors. Export a PDF and print from your desktop printer or send the file to a professional CresPrinter. If you choose, upload a mailing list and let the CresPrinter send it out for you. So simple, anyone can do it!
Crescendo is excited to release these GiftLegacy innovations for 2014, as we continue to seek new and creative ways to provide greater services to the entire field of philanthropy.