Empowering Donors to Create Legacies

A conversation with Brantley Boyett, President, Giving Docs, and Sarah Sosa-Acevedo, NCGPC

Brantley Boyett

NCGPC: Tell us a little bit about Giving Docs. What are your company's values? Have your company's values shifted, adapted or shone brighter in the face of COVID-19?

Brantley Boyett (BB): Giving Docs aims to make estate planning accessible to everyone while amplifying planned giving. We empower nonprofits to reach a much wider audience of prospective planned giving donors, and we help planned giving officers complete the final step in the planned giving donor journey. The Giving Docs platform empowers donors to complete a comprehensive estate plan, using an array of tools including a will, codicil, healthcare directive, beneficiary designation, and financial power of attorney. On our platform, donors will also find tools that will help them give current gifts of stock, grants from donor advised funds, and IRA qualified charitable distributions.

Our company’s values include making estate planning accessible for all, promoting inclusivity, and providing affordable services for nonprofits. During the pandemic, our values shone brighter because of the increased appreciation and need for digital services, and also because of the heightened importance of providing budget-friendly solutions to our clients which was needed in the shifting landscape of planned giving during uncertain times.

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

BB: Having a fully remote workforce, Giving Docs was well-positioned to weather the lockdown from an operational perspective. However, as the planned giving sector was impacted, we also had to pivot to better support the sector and our clients. We adapted our usual speaking engagements to virtual formats as planned giving conferences moved online. We also ensured that white papers and other collateral we produced contained topics relevant to the changing environment, such as our papers on the rise of electronic wills and planned giving in a pandemic. As our partners’ budgets were impacted, we also became more sensitive to shifting priorities and timelines.

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?

BB: Particularly at the beginning of the pandemic, making planned giving asks became more challenging for many of our partners due to the perceived insensitivity of making such asks in a pandemic environment. The Giving Docs team worked with our clients to write new marketing copy and develop new digital campaign strategies that were sensitive to the situation at hand and approached donors in a caring, kind, and empathetic way.

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?

BB: The educational opportunities that NCGPC provides throughout the year and during Planned Giving Days are among the most valuable in the industry. We felt it was important to do what we could to ensure that these valuable programs would continue uninterrupted.

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?

BB: COVID created a shift in people's willingness to accept online tools for estate planning, both from consumers as well as our respected partners in the planned giving industry. We anticipate that the future of our business in a post-COVID environment will see an increased demand for the digital solutions that our company provides.