Scott Wozencraft - I am a relatively new major gift officer. In my short time, I have especially enjoyed getting to work with donors considering a planned gift or with an established planned gift. Their commitment and often long history with the organization are really inspiring, and you can usually learn a thing or three from them.

That said, conversations around these gifts were also challenging for me. Sometimes these conversations involved just plain difficult subject matter (end of life planning, for example) and I was also not well versed with the giving vehicles. Acronyms abound and the information on taxes is probably meant to be handled by someone who has done more than file the standard deduction before.

Despite this, I kept finding myself in more of these conversations and really enjoying having (or at least starting) them with donors. With that, a colleague (who has often helped finish these conversations) presented the idea of applying for the Chicago Council on Planned Giving Symposium Scholarship. After giving the website a look and talking to a few colleagues who had been before, I dusted off my resume and sent in the application. And you can certainly count me grateful that I did.

Marc Carmichael’s intro sessions were terrific and did a nice job presenting the lay of the land. I walked away knowing more about what giving vehicles are available and who they might be right for. Marc, and really all of the presenters, also sprinkled in readily implementable project ideas throughout their presentations. Marilyn Schaffer’s session on stewardship for planned giving donors was especially helpful in this regard. The team I work on recently had a mid-year check in and one of our priority projects to implement in the last half of the year was inspired by an idea in Marilyn’s presentation.

The substance of the conference and experts were exactly what I had hoped for. Beyond that though, the other attendees were also terrific conference partners. Eager to learn and eager to share, everyone was friendly and willing to help one another.

The conference was a tremendous learning and networking experience, and generally a wonderful introduction to the Chicago Council on Planned Giving. I am looking forward to getting more involved with them going forward.

Nanette M. Scoville - Thank you very much for the scholarship to the CCPG Symposium that I was able to attend yesterday. Words can’t express the gratitude in my heart for your generosity in selecting me for the sponsorship. I enjoyed every session. The facilitators were very well versed in the subject matter, were very prepared and made sure that they imparted as much information as possible during each session. I learned quite a bit from every session and some things were confirmations that we are moving in the right direction. This is very encouraging to me. Also, every facilitator offered to make themselves available by email and phone, should we have any questions in the future. They are all very generous professionals and they have a genuine interest in our success. I would also like to especially thank you for your selection of the keynote speaker, Louis Nanni, from University of Notre Dame. His presentation was very educational, inspiring and moving.