How do you start a planned giving program?
To start a planned giving program, find your most loyal donors, partner with an estate planning tool, and talk about legacy gifts all year. Then ask for bequests in donor conversations, invite those donors into a legacy society, and track every commitment in your CRM so none slip away.
A planned giving program does not require a large team or a dedicated budget to launch. With the right tools and a consistent communication strategy, growing nonprofits can build a legacy giving pipeline that secures long-term financial health.
Why Should Your Nonprofit Start a Planned Giving Program Now?
Planned giving often gets pushed to the bottom of the priority list. There is always a more urgent campaign, a gala to plan, or a year-end appeal to write. But the numbers make a compelling case for starting sooner rather than later.
Bequests made up about 10% of all charitable giving in the United States in 2025, rising nearly 20% to $62.19 billion, according to Giving USA 2026. And the opportunity keeps growing. Cerulli Associates projects that $124 trillion in wealth will change hands through 2048, with $18 trillion of it going to charity. That makes estate planning conversations relevant to donors of every age.
Here is what might surprise you: FreeWill's 2025 Planned Giving Report found that 19% of Gen Z donors have already included a charitable bequest in their estate plans, the highest rate of any generation surveyed. Your younger donors belong in this conversation too.
The Georgia Conservancy launched their planned giving program less than a year ago. In nine months, they secured 25 estate commitments with known amounts exceeding $2 million. That kind of pipeline fundamentally changes your organization's long-term financial trajectory.
The Focused Fundraiser
Step 1: Run a Basic Wealth Screening on Your Donor Base
Before you launch any planned giving outreach, you need to understand who in your database might be a prospect. Start with data.
Pull your full donor list. Include current donors, lapsed donors, and any prospects in your database. Planned giving prospects are not always your biggest annual givers. Someone giving $50 or $100 per year may have the capacity to leave a $25,000 or $50,000 estate gift.
Run a wealth screening. Tools like DonorSearch, iWave, or WealthEngine can overlay your donor data with publicly available wealth indicators: real estate ownership, stock holdings, business affiliations, and philanthropic history. This gives you a high-level sense of capacity.
Identify your top 50 to 100 prospects. Look for donors who show a combination of: long tenure with your organization (3+ years of giving), consistent giving patterns (even at modest levels), age indicators that suggest estate planning relevance, and wealth markers from the screening. These are your initial planned giving prospects.
Do not discount smaller donors. Many people who give modestly during their lifetime have the capacity and desire to make a significant estate gift. Your nonprofit CRM can help you sort and segment these prospects based on giving history, engagement level, and other indicators.
Step 2: Choose a Planned Giving Platform Partner
You do not need to build a planned giving program from scratch. Several platforms make it dramatically easier to offer estate planning tools to your donors while capturing commitment data for your organization.
FreeWill is one of the most popular options for growing nonprofits. They offer a free will-writing tool that your donors can use, and when donors create or update their estate plans through the platform, they can easily include a bequest to your organization. FreeWill also provides modules for stock gifts, IRA qualified charitable distributions, and DAF grants.
Other options include Giving Docs, which offers similar functionality, and some community foundations provide planned giving support to their nonprofit partners.
When evaluating platforms, consider whether they offer a branded sub-domain (so the experience feels like your organization, not a third party), what data you receive about donor commitments, and whether they support multiple gift types beyond bequests.
Step 3: Create a Year-Round Communication Calendar
The biggest mistake nonprofits make with planned giving is treating it as a one-time ask rather than an ongoing conversation. You do not need to make a direct ask every time. You need to normalize the idea of legacy giving across your communications. Here is more on making planned giving feel natural for your donors.
Here is a practical annual calendar based on what has worked for organizations like the Georgia Conservancy:
January through February: Digital estate planning campaign. Partner with your planned giving platform to offer free will-writing during the new year, when people are already thinking about financial planning. Promote through email and social media. Position it as a service to your donors, not an ask.
Spring newsletter: Include a planned giving buckslip. A small insert in your print newsletter that simply plants the seed: "Have you considered including [Organization] in your estate plans? Learn more at [URL]." No hard ask. Just awareness.
August: Make-A-Will Month. August is national Make-A-Will Month. Use this as a hook for email campaigns, social posts, and blog content about the importance of estate planning. Again, lead with the value to the donor, not your need.
October: National Estate Planning Awareness Week. Another natural hook for planned giving communications. Share stories of legacy donors (with permission) and highlight the different ways people can include your organization in their plans: bequests, beneficiary designations on retirement accounts or life insurance, charitable remainder trusts, and stock gifts.
Year-end appeal: Include a planned giving option. Your year-end campaign does not have to be cash-only. Include a line about legacy giving as an alternative way to support your mission. Some donors who cannot increase their annual gift may be very open to an estate commitment.
Step 4: Add Planned Giving Touchpoints to Major Donor Conversations
Your major donor meetings are the natural place for planned giving conversations, but timing matters. You do not lead with estate planning. You listen for cues and introduce the topic when it fits organically. If you already run a major gifts program, planned giving fits right inside it, and a moves management process tells you when each donor is ready for the conversation.
Listen for legacy language. When donors talk about wanting their values to outlast them, wanting their children to see the importance of giving, or worrying about the long-term future of your mission area, those are natural openings for a planned giving conversation.
Use a giving chart to let donors self-select. Create a simple one-page overview of planned giving levels with the recognition and benefits at each tier. Levels might range from $10,000 to $1 million. When you share this in a meeting, donors naturally gravitate toward the level that feels right for them. This removes the awkwardness of asking "how much?" and lets the donor lead.
Offer both internal and external recognition options. Many donors worry that disclosing their estate gift amount will change how people treat them or attract solicitations from other organizations. Address this proactively. Let donors know they can keep the amount internal (only your team knows) or share it publicly to inspire others. Most donors choose internal-only, and knowing that option exists makes them much more comfortable disclosing.
Connect giving to family values. For legacy builders, frame the estate gift as something their children and grandchildren can take pride in. Offer to send annual impact reports to family members after the donor passes, so the family can see how the endowment continues to make a difference. That framing turns an estate gift from a financial transaction into a family legacy.
Step 5: Ask for Bequests and Start a Legacy Society
A bequest is a gift a donor leaves your organization in their will or trust. It can be a set dollar amount, a percentage of their estate, or whatever remains after their family is provided for. Donors can also name you as the beneficiary of a retirement account or life insurance policy. Bequests are the easiest planned gift to explain and the easiest to say yes to, because they cost the donor nothing today and can be changed later.
Invite the bequest in conversations you are already having. You do not need a special meeting. When a long-time donor talks about why they give, try a gentle question: "You have supported us for years. Have you ever thought about including us in your estate plans?" If the answer is "not yet," that is fine. You have planted the idea, and you can come back to it in a few months.
Make the gift feel within reach. A donor who gives $1,000 a year may never picture themselves funding something big. Showing them how a pledge paired with a bequest could name a room or endow a program changes how they see their place in your future.
Start a legacy society. A legacy society is a named group that recognizes everyone who has included your organization in their estate plans. Many donors add you to their will and never mention it, so the society gives them a reason to tell you, and it gives you a reason to thank them now, years before the gift arrives. Keep it easy to run: a name tied to your mission, a welcome letter, a yearly gathering or update call, and a listing in your annual report for anyone who wants public recognition.
Make joining easy. Provide a simple form where donors can share their commitment and join the society. Include fields for gift type (bequest, beneficiary designation, trust, etc.), estimated amount (with "prefer not to disclose" as an option), and whether they want internal or public recognition.
One tactic worth borrowing once you have several undisclosed commitments: ask a major donor to fund a match that pays into your annual fund each time someone shares a new or existing estate gift. Andrew Kerr explains how it works on The Focused Fundraiser.
Step 6: Track Everything in Your CRM
Planned giving data is uniquely important because the timeline between commitment and realization can span decades. If you do not track commitments systematically, institutional knowledge walks out the door every time a staff member leaves.
Create a planned giving designation or fund in your CRM. Every estate commitment should be logged with the donor's name, commitment date, gift type, estimated amount (if disclosed), recognition preference, and any conditions or designations attached to the gift.
Tag planned giving prospects and committed donors. Use tags or custom fields in DonorDock to distinguish between prospects you are cultivating, donors who have made a verbal commitment, and donors who have provided documentation. This segmentation lets you tailor your communication to each group.
Set stewardship reminders. Planned giving donors need ongoing stewardship even though their gift will not be realized for years. Set annual touchpoints: a personal call or note, an invitation to special events, and an impact update showing how current gifts in their area of interest are making a difference. DonorDock's task management and outreach tools can automate these reminders so no donor falls through the cracks.
Report on your pipeline. Build a simple planned giving report that shows total committed amount, number of commitments by type, new commitments this year, and prospect-to-commitment conversion rate. Share this with your board quarterly. Even early numbers build confidence that the program is worth the investment.
Step 7: Scale with Consistent Messaging
The beauty of planned giving is that it does not require expensive campaigns. Most of the work happens through consistent, low-cost communication that normalizes legacy giving as part of your organizational culture.
Add a planned giving mention to your email signature. A simple line like "Learn about leaving a legacy at [Organization]" with a link to your planned giving page costs nothing and puts the idea in front of every donor you correspond with.
Feature legacy donor stories. With permission, share brief profiles of donors who have included your organization in their estate plans. Focus on the donor's motivation and values, not the dollar amount. These stories normalize planned giving and give other donors a model to follow.
Train your team. Every development officer should be comfortable mentioning planned giving in donor conversations. This does not mean becoming an estate planning expert. It means being able to say, "Have you ever considered including us in your estate plans? We have a free tool that makes it easy," and then directing the donor to your planned giving platform or page.
