Service Award

Beth Posniak FIencke Named 2026 Distinguished Service Award Honoree

The National Capital Gift Planning Council (NCGPC) is proud to announce Beth Posniak Fiencke, Director, Gift Planning Strategy & Stewardship, The Nature Conservancy, as the 30th recipient of its prestigious Distinguished Service Award. The award will be presented to Beth on June 16 at the 2026 Planned Giving Day Conference at American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C.

The Distinguished Service Award (DSA) was created to honor gift planning, development or allied professionals with an exemplary record of service including:

• Demonstrated quality leadership in gift planning

• Longevity in the field (a minimum of five years)

• Specific achievements in promoting and securing planned gifts

• Service to the gift planning profession through participation in CGP and/or NCGPC

• Adherence to the Model Standards of Practice for the Charitable Gift Planner

Each year, DSA nominations are received by a selection committee tasked with reviewing nominations and making a recommendation to the NCGPC Board of Directors. To ensure a balanced and representative vote, the committee includes at minimum the most recent DSA recipient (or a previous award winner), a current NCGPC Board Member, and one or more active NCGPC members.

Over the course of her 21-year Gift Planning career with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Beth has been at the heart of both building and sustaining a fully integrated Gift Planning culture at TNC.

She distinguished herself early in her career as someone dedicated to a career in Gift Planning. She has thoughtfully sought advice and mentorship to become a leader in both planned gift marketing and legacy club stewardship. She understands that building a best-in-class gift planning program is not just about closing big gifts, but also about the full donor experience – donor engagement, outreach & pipeline development, and stewardship – as well as personal attributes of leadership, strategy development and volunteerism.

Beth is described as "a valued partner whom I trust implicitly to give sound advice, offer expert guidance and to surface challenges to solve together. I enjoy any and all collaboration with her and her team and always come away from our conversations with an expanded perspective that serves my own work well." 

She has led the development of targeted marketing strategies and campaigns that effectively communicate the impact and accessibility of planned giving, expanding TNC’s reach through social media, telemarketing, direct mail, digital, magazine, and print channels to successfully generate thousands of new planned giving inquiries and bequest reveals every year. Equally important to lead generation and prospect qualification, she has strengthened TNC’s Legacy Club recognition society, growing its membership and deepening donor engagement through webinars, tele-townhalls, field trips, events, and personalized stewardship touchpoints designed to inspire trust and confidence in planned givers. 

Beth also has been a leader outside of TNC. She has volunteered with NCGPC since 2018, serving as a track dean of the PG Day conference. She joined the NCGPC Board in 2019, and served on the Membership, Nominations and Programming Committees. In her 6-year tenure on the board, she was also the Marketing Committee Co-Chair and served as Vice President of Programming. She was instrumental in developing the “Holiday Happy Hour” and the “Behind-the-Scenes of a Powerhouse Gift Planning Program,” two highly regarded NCGPC events.

We look forward to celebrating Beth’s well-deserved Distinguished Service Award selection on Tuesday, June 16th, Planned Giving Day 2026, where she will be recognized during lunch. Please join us in congratulating Beth for having earned this distinguished honor and in offering our deepest thanks for her immeasurable impact on TNC, NCGPC, and the planned giving profession!