Dr. Scott Janney
“The first college course I ever taught was in a maximum security prison,” says Dr. Scott Janney, a nationally-know speaker, writer, and practicing planned giving professional. “I would hear the first thick steel door close behind me, then the second one, make my way through the common area, then finally enter the relatively-less-dangerous classroom section where I taught American history to a group of eleven ‘lifers.’” Janney has always loved teaching. He once had dreams of becoming a college president until his dissertation, “The College President and Fund Raising Effectiveness,” led him in a different direction.
Scott has walked both sides of the aisle – we’re talking about fundraiser and consultant – get that prison image out of your head. He has plenty of war stories to tell ... from the 100-year-old who asked for a gift annuity illustration to the 98-year-old who said, “You haven’t done any business today,” because he was on his way out the door without asking for the gift. Then there’s the man who almost funded a gift annuity for himself and a nine-year-old. Scott is also a dedicated father of a wonderful son, David, who at the age of 5 loves watching Curious George and calculating Variable Rate Charitable Gift Annuities.
Scott holds an Ed. D. in Educational Administration from Temple University, a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, and an undergraduate degree from Kentucky’s Asbury College.
As resumes go, Scott’s is substantive and diverse. He started his development career at Biblical Theological Seminary and Temple University, where he introduced a highly successful planned gifts marketing program as part of a $300 million campaign. Next, he launched the first planned giving program at the suburban St. Mary Medical Foundation, bringing in over $8 million in bequest commitments from the 41 charter members of the Legacy Society. Scott also closed the largest gift in the hospital’s history: a combined cash and trust gift of $1.25 million. As Director of Planned Giving for Main Line Health, Scott raised more than $10,000,000 in FY 2008 while creating coalitions with the legal department, business office, external wealth advisors and attorneys.
Scott is a co-founder and presenter of Planned Giving Boot Camp and The Planned Giving Course, and has been a driving force behind Philadelphia’s Planned Giving Day for the past eight years. He is a highly effective communicator and sought-after speaker at the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning (formerly the National Conference on Planned Giving), Planned Giving Councils, and AFP chapters. He has been a Certified Fund Raising Executive since 1997 and earned the designation of Registered Financial Consultant in 2008.
While he has “just a drop of Irish blood,” Scott is a full-fledged fan of Irish music and loves to play the fiddle. In his younger and wilder days he did play in a few pubs. He is still known to take out his fiddle at local planned giving events (not). Scott is also somewhat of a nerd, bringing his experiences as a former professor of statistics and finance (he only taught history because his wife wouldn’t go into the prison) to his planned giving speaking engagements. He loves painting simple word pictures that make complicated concepts easier to understand.
Scott is married to writer Rebecca Price Janney, author of Then Comes Marriage?: A Cultural History of the American Family and 18 other books. The Janneys live in East Norriton, about ten minutes from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.