How to start a planned giving program: Step-by-step guide

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With the right approach and goals, any nonprofit can start a planned giving program. 

Planned giving, also known as deferred or legacy giving, is the process of giving charitable contributions from financial or estate plans. A planned giving program allows your nonprofit to find, solicit, and steward planned giving donors in a sustained way.

Why should you start a dedicated program? Planned giving programs are how organizations invest in their future. In 2023, on the FreeWill platform, we helped raise a total of $1.8 billion in planned gifts for nonprofits. The largest average gift value among all age cohorts was $59,480 (FreeWill Planned Giving Report).

Plus, organizations of all sizes can successfully launch new planned giving programs. Large nonprofits with robust development departments and smaller nonprofits with a few hours to spare each week can start prioritizing planned giving today. 

How? Let’s take a look.

Step-by-step checklist for starting a planned giving program

Here is a complete checklist that summarizes our recommended steps for launching your new program:

By following these steps and the underlying best practices, you can lay out the perfect approach for your organization’s unique goals and needs. 

Now, let’s examine each step more closely, identify the key details you should understand, and provide additional educational resources to help you master planned giving.

1. Understand how planned giving works.

Before you start planning specifics for your program, learn the essentials of this form of giving. Our introductory guide to planned giving explains these gifts, the different forms they can take, how they work, and why they're so valuable for nonprofits. 

Here are a few key takeaways to understand before moving forward:

• Planned gifts are donations made through donors’ estate or financial plans. They are deferred gifts that are received once a donor’s will has been executed.
• These gifts help secure the futures of the nonprofits that receive them because they’re predictable, often unrestricted, and usually larger than average.
• Bequests make up every nine out of ten planned gifts, and they’re the easiest way for both donors and nonprofits to get started with planned giving. To create a bequest, a donor simply needs to name your nonprofit as a beneficiary in their will.
• Planned giving programs help you track planned gifts and steward relationships with these donors. 

To learn more, we recommend exploring these resources:

• The benefits of planned giving for nonprofits and donors
• 10 types of planned gifts your nonprofit should know
• How to talk to donors about planned giving: 10 tips

Once you have a solid grasp on how planned gifts work and why you should prioritize them, you can begin taking steps to start building your program—starting by reaching out to your board.

2. Secure organizational buy-in for planned giving.

A new fundraising program for your organization will likely require approval from your board and leadership since it represents a new strategic investment. 

Set up time at your next board meeting to discuss planned gifts and emphasize their long-term pay-off and benefits. 

‍It isn’t hard to make the case for planned giving, and fundraising experts increasingly recommend it as a strategic priority. 

‍When efficiently pursued through a planned giving program, planned giving has one of the highest ROIs of all fundraising types. These gifts are accessible to a wide range of donors and tend to increase engagement and annual giving. Planned gifts allow donors to leave lasting legacies without feeling the financial impact in their lifetime. Not to mention, nonprofits have unprecedented opportunities to tap into these gifts, as the Baby Boomer generation will pass on an estimated $68 trillion in wealth over the next 25 years.

At this stage, present your plan for establishing the program (following the steps in this guide!) and detail any upfront investments that your organization may need to make. Some nonprofits also choose to form advisory boards of staff, partners, peers, and local financial and tax professionals to help oversee the program development process.

3. Allocate responsibility for the program.

Once you've decided to start a program and received the go-ahead from leadership, determine who will be responsible for it.

‍Several different individuals may step up to lead a new planned giving program, but the key is to ensure that there is one clear leader who takes responsibility for the program. This will streamline communication and ensure that everyone stays on the same page. Your organization should also decide where planned giving fits within its existing infrastructure. It may fall under the purview of the annual, major gifts, or another fundraising team. 

For large nonprofits, planned giving can be part of an established development or major gifts program. For smaller nonprofits, an experienced fundraiser with enough time to devote to planned giving can make a great program leader. Many organizations also fold planned giving into their annual fundraising structures.

Wherever responsibility sits, it’s important to align your nonprofit’s development and communications teams on the purpose and value of your planned giving program so that it’s properly resourced and supported. In Step 10 below, we’ll discuss how to ensure information flows smoothly between departments.

4. Build your planned giving toolkit.

As with your other fundraising programs, you’ll need to use dedicated tools to ensure it runs as smoothly and productively as possible. As you get started, your planned giving toolkit should include:

• Your nonprofit’s CRM or donor database to help you research prospects and store new data as donors begin interacting with your planned giving program.
• Your nonprofit’s marketing tools (email, social media, text messaging tools, etc.) to promote your program.
• Planned giving-specific tools like FreeWill to help facilitate the bequest process, generate data, and manage your program sustainably over time.

You may also want to review and bolster your nonprofit’s financial and accounting tools if needed to ensure you can accurately keep track of committed gifts over time.

Many organizations new to planned giving overlook one key best practice that can help them secure more support from the very start—create an intentional and easy planned giving process for donors. 

‍Tools like FreeWill can help facilitate a smooth donor experience, but don’t neglect the internal processes that contribute to that experience, as well. A clearly defined process for discussing, securing, and following up on new planned gifts will benefit your donors and your staff.

5. Develop foundational planned giving policies.

To guide decision-making and governance for your new planned giving program, you should establish a few foundational policies. These can include:

• Gift acceptance policies that outline the types of planned gifts and gift terms that you can and cannot accept
• Valuation and reporting policies that define your processes for assigning value to any non-cash gifts given as part of planned gifts and how you’ll report those values in relevant tax documents
• Ethical standards to guide the governance of your program, similar to any broader ethical policies you have in your bylaws
• Recognition practices that outline your standard methods of recognizing planned gift donors to set shared expectations once gifts are committed

It’s not necessary to get these policies 100% perfect immediately—you can work with your board to refine and update them over time as you identify gaps. However, laying this foundation now can be immensely helpful later once you begin actively soliciting planned gifts. If frontline fundraisers run into an unexpected situation or difficult questions, this guidance will help them and create a smoother experience for your prospects.

6. Set goals for your planned giving program.

There is still more logistical planning to do before your program can officially launch.

Think through any additional guidelines that will shape how your program runs. First and foremost, you should establish goals for your first concerted push into planned giving.

Use the SMART method to set attainable goals for what you want to achieve with your planned giving program and decide what success looks like for it.

It can take a while to get a donor to commit to a planned gift, especially if you’re meeting with top prospects. Therefore, you may want to set both qualitative and quantitative goals, such as:

• Number of planned gifts that donors commit
• Number of identified and qualified prospects
• Scheduled one-on-one meetings with top prospects
• Amount in planned gifts your organization will receive this year
• Number of calls made to planned giving prospects or donors

Focus your goals on actionable items. Base them on your number of prospects and the time and resources you have to dedicate to your program. Create an annual plan for your goals, and then break it down into quarterly and monthly chunks. This will make tracking your progress and reporting on the results easier.

Additionally, consider the timeframes or benchmark periods for these goals. How and when will you review your program’s progress? Try running through a prototype reporting process to get a sense of how it will work and what you may want to improve once the real work is underway. 

7. Find initial planned gift prospects.

To get your planned giving program off the ground, you’ll need to know who to market it to. One approach is to promote it to all supporters, such as by listing bequests as a donation method on your “Ways to Give” page or mentioning it in your monthly communications.

‍However, for the best results, you should also narrow your search to prospects that have shown a demonstrated dedication to your cause. This is one of the biggest and most common challenges faced by planned giving newcomers.

You can get started by digging into your nonprofit’s donor database and reaching out to donors. Try these steps:

1. Research prospects and long-time major or annual donors to see if they have the traits of a planned giving donor.
2. Identify donors who regularly show increased levels of engagement. For example, a donor who takes the additional steps of going through the matching gift process may indicate they would be willing to make future larger gifts even if they lack the financial capacity to do so at this moment. 
3. Broadly survey supporters to find any donors who have already made bequests or are interested in learning more about planned giving.
4. Create segmented lists of potential prospects based on what you’ve learned, and then begin reaching out to promote your new program.

‍So what are the traits of a planned giving donor? We’ve written an in-depth guide to planned gift prospecting. For an even closer look at who creates planned gifts, download the FreeWill Planned Giving Report.

Looking forward, as your program generates more data, you can refine your segments based on what you learn to better focus your resources on cultivating the most valuable planned gift prospects. Testing and tailoring your messaging to each group can help your nonprofit build stronger relationships more quickly, leading to more of these valuable gifts.

8. Launch a legacy society.

Nonprofit teams often use “planned giving” as an internal term. Outwardly, many organizations call these programs legacy societies. A legacy society member is usually anyone who makes a planned gift. These memberships allow nonprofits to welcome donors and make them feel like a part of a special community.

The first step to starting your legacy society is to choose a name. Many organizations just call it “[Organization Name] Legacy Society.” Others may choose a historical figure, their founding date, or an inspiring phrase. For example, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention calls it their “Legacy of Hope Society.”

Then decide what benefits you want to offer to your legacy society members. This could be as simple as recognizing your legacy donors in an annual report or brochure, but you could also make your society more dynamic by offering a range of perks. These often include invitations to special donor events or complimentary newsletter subscriptions.

9. Outline and kick off a marketing plan for the program.

Once you finalize the details for your planned giving program, you can outline your plan to market it. This will most likely be a cross-team effort with your communications or marketing department. Work together to cover these three essential components of a planned giving outreach strategy:

Create your marketing materials.

Start by developing a one-page document that explains all of the benefits planned gifts bring donors, such as tax advantages, legacy society benefits, and the ability to establish a meaningful legacy. Use this one-pager as a guide for other marketing materials, such as a press release, your website, email, and social media. 

Many nonprofits also create dedicated planned giving microsites that explain these gifts to simplify the process of promoting their programs over time. By giving your planned giving and other non-cash giving options a central digital home, you’ll have the space to answer questions, provide resources, and collect information from potential donors.

Add planned giving as a donation option on your website.

If you want to encourage planned gifts, make it easy and intuitive for your supporters to give. 

On your main Ways to Give page and in your website's running navigation bar, be sure to link to your Planned Giving Microsite so that visitors can easily find it. You can also add a section to your regular donation page that lets supporters request more information on planned gifts while they're already in the giving spirit.

Your goal should be to make planned gifts accessible to everyone. Habitat for Humanity does this by creating a dedicated online space for planned giving. The organization links to it from its main site and then includes pages like “Gifts that cost you nothing now.” They offer sample will language, how to get in touch with their planned giving team, free resources, and a giving toolkit.

You can also give your supporters easy ways to make their wills online. For example, we partner with organizations to include FreeWill as an easy, free way for donors to create bequests. 

When doing this, use social proof statements to encourage supporters to leave bequests. For example, you can start by saying, “Many of our supporters have already written a will and included a gift to our organization.” As your legacy society grows, collect testimonials from members to use in your marketing materials and share concrete program participation data.

Add planned giving marketing to your existing marketing calendar.

When starting a planned giving program, it’s important to unify the planned giving and communications teams. Together they should plan at least four standalone campaigns to promote the program, plus six to eight integrated mentions in other communications per year.

Include planned giving in communications as:

• A full campaign for National Make-A-Will Month in August
• Postscript mentions in general fundraising appeals
• Legacy donor stories in impact and appreciation content
• Newsletter mentions
• Ways to donate on Giving Tuesday
• Legacy society announcements

After launching your first planned giving campaign, plan consistent outreach. Repetition is integral for seeing results from your planned giving marketing. A supporter may open an email about planned giving several times before actually sitting down to make a will and leave a bequest. 

Actively track your engagement, follow up with potential donors, and set up meetings with top prospects or others who responded with interest.

Extra tip: Tap into digital advertising resources to promote your planned giving program.

Promote your program’s web pages through your usual marketing channels as well as search engine ads. Search engines like Google are a core tool for attracting new traffic to your website, and using search ads to promote your planned giving content can help more individuals interested in creating a legacy find your website.

For nonprofits, Google offers the Google Ad Grant program, which provides free advertising credits to spend on search ads each month. This means you can promote your planned giving program through Google Ads for free. 

However, creating and maintaining a Google Ad Grant account still requires time, energy, and expertise. If your nonprofit’s team lacks the resources to actively manage your Google Ad strategy, consider outsourcing the work to a Google Ad Grant agency or plan ahead to devote time and budget to this channel later once your program is established.

10. Ensure information is flowing smoothly.

With the core infrastructure of your planned giving program in place, prospecting underway, and marketing and communications kicking into gear,  you’re almost ready to consider your new program officially launched.

‍However, you should still take the time to double-check a few things. Specifically, answer these logistical questions:‍

• Are there workflows, cadences, and technical integrations in place to ensure a smooth flow of relevant prospect and engagement data between the planned giving, development, and communications teams?
• Do you foresee any data silos developing? Has your organization struggled with confusing data flows in the past? If these issues exist, how can you resolve them?
• Do fundraisers who will be soliciting planned gifts understand the reporting protocols you’ve established to enter interaction records into your CRM?
• Do you have a plan for reporting the progress of your planned giving efforts?

These backend logistics and workflows will ultimately sustain your program’s long-term success, so it’s important to make them a priority. Reviewing and refining them now will be a smart choice before activity and donation volume picks up. Your team will thank you later!

11. Make planned giving a sustained priority.

Planned gift fundraising is underway. Now, how do you translate the initial burst of kickoff energy into consistent results? Make planned giving a sustained priority at your organization.

This can take many forms, as organizations of different sizes will have varying capacities for focusing time and energy on one particular program at a time. Larger nonprofits with dedicated development teams and planned giving staff members will have less trouble with this step.

For smaller organizations that fit planned giving into more general fundraising operations, we suggest setting aside some time each day (an hour, even just half an hour) to check in on your planned giving program. Review progress, check out your reports, refine your prospect segments, follow up with donors and prospects—identify the program’s current highest priority and knock it out. 

‍This approach works wonders, and it’s ultimately much easier to sustain than attempting to ‘bucket’ all of your planned giving work every couple of weeks. After all, prospects with questions and donors who’ve just committed gifts don’t want to wait to hear from you until you happen to have time for them!

For all nonprofits, you can drive long-term interest in your planned giving program by planning ahead to host extra educational engagement opportunities. These will be held outside of your legacy society with the express purpose of increasing awareness of estate planning and the benefits of planned giving. Educational seminars with local financial and tax professionals and booths at your events or co-hosted community events are common choices. 

12. Acknowledge and steward your planned gift donors.

Thanking your donors as soon as they notify you of a planned gift should be a vital part of your planned giving program. This could involve welcoming them to your legacy society, a simple thank-you, or even a request to follow up with them by phone. Whatever your approach, it’s crucial to acknowledge your donors’ generosity and keep them engaged, and not only for the purposes of relationship-building.

‍Remember that the majority of planned gifts are bequests, and these gifts are revocable until the donor’s passing. 

‍This means that after the initial gift is planned, your nonprofit must keep stewarding donors to preserve the gift. Maintain consistent communication, encourage them to be active in your community, and publicly thank them for their gifts.

By doing this, you will strengthen your organization’s relationships with your donors for years to come, increase their investment in your success, and potentially encourage them to increase their annual giving.

Stewardship ideas for establishing a planned giving program

After thanking your planned giving donors, begin stewarding them on a regular basis with these strategies and offerings:

Events

Invite your donors to legacy society events, such as annual meetings, lecture series, galas, luncheons, or small virtual gatherings. Ensure the focus of these events is gratitude rather than fundraising.

Some types of nonprofits may be able to offer unique events, like facility tours. For example, a museum could offer private or virtual tours of its galleries, a food bank might offer a tour of its warehouse and operations, and an orchestra could invite legacy society members to private concerts.

Donor stories

Your donors all have unique motivations and hopes for their legacy gifts, and sharing these personal stories can help donors connect with your nonprofit and each other, encouraging more giving.

In these stories, ask the donor to reflect on what inspired them to give. For a college’s planned giving program, an alum might speak about the impact a financial aid program had on their life, which inspired them to pay it forward. Or, a donor might have been inspired to give a gift in honor of a family member connected to a cause.

eCards

Thank-you messages are a staple of all appreciation strategies. To better connect with donors, nonprofits can add a creative twist to their approach, like eCards. eCards are digital postcards with a written message and a striking visual image. The big benefit of this approach is that eCards arrive in donors’ inboxes in seconds, making them an effective tool for recognizing donors quickly and memorably. 

Send eCards to thank planned giving prospects for their regular donations. Then, create special eCards specifically to acknowledge planned gifts. These might include visual references to your planned giving program and personalized messages that speak to donors’ specific gifts.

Significant dates

Depending on the type of planned gift your donor made, you may want to reach out to them on the anniversary of their commitment. You can also send handwritten thank-you letters and eCards on birthdays or major holidays. 

Sustained communication keeps you in your donors’ lives long after their initial gift commitment, increasing the chances they will follow through with it.

Volunteer opportunities

If donors express interest in getting more involved with your organization, invite them to volunteer. Depending on their interests and skills, these opportunities could range from serving as guest lecturers to helping out at a 5K race fundraiser.

Updates and newsletters

Ask your donors if they want to subscribe to your newsletters and receive updates on your organization. 

This is the single easiest way to continue engaging them with your nonprofit’s meaningful work and help them feel confident that their gift will go to an active, sustainable organization.

Phone and video calls

Invite your top planned giving donors to have annual calls with your organization’s president. Your gift officers may also occasionally check in with these donors via phone call to see how they’re doing and build a rapport with them.

Care packages

In a convSending simple care packages can show how much your organization cares about your donors. Consider items like:

• Tea and coffee
• Calendars and magnets
• Snacks
• Cold remedies during flu season
• Branded merchandise like water bottles and scarves

Whether you send a care package as a nice thank-you around the holidays or just because, it will make your donors feel appreciated.

Wrapping up

Starting a planned giving program is fairly straightforward, but it does require careful strategy and coordination between multiple teams. Prioritize planned giving by allocating plenty of time and resources to your program. Even devoting just a few hours to launching and running your planned giving program can be enough when you’re starting out.

And this initial investment will pay dividends, not only in the new planned gifts you secure but in the groundwork you lay for further expanding your fundraising efforts. 

Planned giving can be an ideal launchpad for soliciting other types of gifts, most notably non-cash gifts and DAF grants. Once your team becomes comfortable discussing flexible giving options and identifying new prospects, gifts of stock, property, qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) from IRAs, and even donations of cryptocurrency will all be within easier reach.

Platforms like FreeWill also make it easy to start a planned giving program by giving donors simple options for creating bequests and giving your team the tools and custom marketing materials it needs to succeed. Learn more about our planned giving platform, and keep exploring with these additional resources:

• Planned giving: A complete guide to planned giving programs
• How to talk to donors about planned giving: 10 tips
• Planned giving marketing: 7 strategies and ideas you need
• The benefits of planned giving for nonprofits and donors

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