Making Planned Giving Easy, Affordable and Efficient

Bree Daniel

A conversation with Bree Daniel, Integrated Marketing Specialist — Southeast Region, Crescendo Interactive, Inc. and Elana Lippa, NCGPC

NCGPC: Tell us about Crescendo Interactive, Inc. What are your company’s values? Have your company’s values shifted, adapted, or shone brighter in the face of COVID-19?

Bree Daniel (BD): Crescendo Interactive, Inc., is honored to have been serving our non-profit clients for over thirty-seven years. Our mission is to provide comprehensive and flexible solutions to help clients effectively market and close major, blended and planned gifts. Crescendo has three core values: Service to Humanity, Innovative Donor Education, and Generosity of Spirit. We immediately and diligently took action on the first two core values by providing free educational opportunities and relevant marketing materials to support our nonprofits’ stewardship efforts during such an uncertain time.

NCGPC: How has COVID-19 affected your business operations and how have you adapted?

BD: Crescendo responded quickly to the pandemic. The priorities were to keep the staff safe and to keep our operations running smoothly for our clients. Crescendo has never operated virtually, so our team worked swiftly to get everyone set up to work remotely. To stay connected and serve our clients, we hold daily team phone calls. We put safety protocols in place to protect all staff and clients.

NCGPC: Share a success story or a creative solution that was prompted by the challenges of the pandemic. How did your team resolve the challenge to best support your charitable clients?

BD: Crescendo hosts an annual, widely-attended event called PPGC (Practical Planned Giving Conference). Our 2020 conference generated a lot of buzz, and we had a hearty list of registrants. Due to the pandemic, we pivoted quickly to a virtual event. To embody our third core value, “Generosity of Spirit,” we made it free for all attendees. It was a proud moment for me.

NCGPC: What do you value most about your relationship with NCGPC that made you decide to continue supporting us during a challenging and uncertain year?

BD: We have such a high regard for NCGPC and its ability to provide valuable education, research and strategies to the planned giving community. We did not want to see that halted, even in the face of the pandemic. We value our long-time partnership and always look forward to supporting NCGPC events. I’ve enjoyed attending Planned Giving Days in the past. The attendees were excited, engaged, and personally came up and thanked Crescendo for our sponsorship. This speaks volumes on the quality NCGPC pours into their events.

NCGPC: Will COVID-19 change the way your company conducts business in the future? If so, how? What does the future of your business look like post-COVID?

BD: While we look forward to more normalcy and in-person connections again, we were pleasantly surprised by the creativity that arose through our online events. Our virtual programs made them more accessible (just a mouse click away), and we saw an uptick in the number of registrants. We are not yet certain what this may look like in the near future, but we did learn that virtual communications and events can also be effective in serving our nonprofits and advisors.

For more information, please visit www.Crescendointeractive.com.