Its amazing how I was too blind to see through things for so long. A friend of mine worked high up in accounting at Bethel and said that the donation arrangement had really hurt cash flow
In 1996, just a few years after the donation arrangement for literature started, and the generation change, the CO discreetly asked a few of us to a meeting with the Planned Giving department brothers who were visiting in our area. Just a few convention 'heavy' elders were asked (all hush hush) to attend.
The meeting was with about 10-12 of us and it was about how to direct brothers and sisters to the planned giving department if they desired to donate to the society. Now as has been pointed out on this forum, the magazines print a yearly article with much of this information. It covers how to donate stock, property, etc. The brothers said at this meeting that sometimes we may hear of someone wanting to make estate plans involving the society, and we need to be ready to direct them to the planned giving department. Bethel would be happy to send a representative to our area to help such a person draw up their estate plans to care for their needs, their children, and so on, if they were also including the WBTS.
I asked one brother about the fact that many JW's don't believe in IRA's and so on. Many feel that even having one shows a lack of faith. How do we respond to such ones? He said that while that is true that some feel that way, the JW's who would have assets tend not to have that belief as much as those who don't have substantial assets. He said that we should all "wear two hats". We live for Armageddon tomorrow, and we also make long range plans. We should be like the WBTS who keeps building since no one knows how long until the end.
This answer quite surprised me at the time. To hear a bethel heavy brother talk about the "two hats", and making ourselves available to friends with estates to plan for. They were careful to say that we were never to suggest such giving, but be ready to steer it there way if the people wished. They will even send an attorney out to help with the papers. They also said that the GB was uncomfortable with these brothers going around and having meetings like this because of how it appeared, bet they convinced the GB that a department to accept donations was commonplace among large organizations.