Who's Who?
At our university, we send out a lot of planned giving material to prospects and donors, in addition to what we put on our website. We are inclined to use pictures and personal stories because I feel that they make the most impact. Although most pictures are of happy donors whom we identify, we sometimes use people who are not identified. In fact, some of the pictures we use aren't even of donors. They're just good looking, happy people. We had a gift annuity advertisement in the alumni bulletin where we used stock footage and the woman was clearly quite young in her early 40s, I'd say. The problem is that the text described how an "eight percent payout is a very good return" for this donor - and she looked too young for such a payout. My boss said that no one would know and so not to worry. Should I worry?
Unless that's a trick question, yes. Other than the dilemma inherent in the commercialism-tinged messages as charities promote high payout rates in this low-interest, low-yield economic environment, the issue you are directly hitting is whether it is ethical for a charity to use in its advertising the face of someone who has nothing to do with the ad's message. After all, we see stock footage all the time in those bucolic photos of students dreamily wandering around campus just contented as can be to attend college. Same at other nonprofits as well. But those ads are not person-specific, and I'd think that any ad where a person is front and center of the message ought to have something to do with the message. What, you couldn't take a photo of a real person?
Or wasn't the real donor photogenic enough? The idea of beautiful people adorning our advertising pages has its obvious logic, of course, but there are times - many of them - when reality ought to trump aesthetics. Placing a planned giving ad or message is clearly among those times. Unless the 45ish year old woman in question is prepared to admit that she's over 80 - when rates rise to eight percent - I suggest you have a problem.
And not just because you're asking her if she's 80. Even if "no one would know," as your boss so blithely suggests, the idea is not good. It doesn't matter that no one else knows the truth if you know it's not the truth. Besides, someone outside your office will notice. That's just one of the main laws of life: Whatever you think you can keep secret, you can't. But, as I say, you shouldn't want to cover something up, as you are at a charity a university - where I imagine that you instill ideas of academic honesty in students.
And, another thing, something I mentioned recently in another column: Stop using the term 'return"' when it comes to what is paid to an annuitant. It is a 'payment.' A 'return' is a financial benefit obtained from an investment; an annuity payment is made regardless of the investment's success. I am adamant about this, but no more so than my (and that of many others of my vintage) dear and departed friend, Jim Potter. I am certain he smiles upon those who get this right.