For most nonprofits, fall marks the beginning of an important fundraising stretch of the year. Year-end appeals, donor events, planned giving goal deadlines, and stewardship outreach (whfew!) all compete for attention.
What felt like a distant campaign season might suddenly become a scramble for content, outreach lists, and stewardship touches. Calendars fill up, and year-end deadlines are somehow on the horizon before you even realized that the calendar had turned toward fall.
And around this time, planned giving teams find themselves asking the same question: “Are we actually ready?”
But the question you should be asking is more nuanced than this, and it starts with digging into what “being ready” actually means. Because the organizations that generate the strongest planned giving results aren’t necessarily the ones with the best campaign creative.
They’re the ones prepared for what happens after a donor engages.
In other words, readiness (and even success) isn’t just about launching a campaign. It’s based instead on your organization’s ability to identify donor intent, support donor action, and steward relationships over time.
So before fall campaign season begins, smart planned giving teams are asking themselves these three questions:
1. Are We Giving Donors a Reason to Engage?
The most powerful campaigns are designed to move a donor through a thoughtfully curated planned giving engagement funnel. And a vital part of that funnel is the initial pull at the start.
In other words – before a donor can move toward action, they have to engage.
We all understand that our supporters are busy. They’re not waiting all year for our planned giving campaign to arrive. Their inboxes are crowded, their mailboxes are full, and they’re juggling countless competing priorities.
The challenge isn’t recognizing this reality, but knowing what to do about it.
Navigating this successfully means that your outreach needs more than a generic reminder about leaving a legacy. To drive engagement (and ultimately results) your campaign must offer something that is genuinely valuable to the donor. This looks like resources, stories, and opportunities that help donors make progress on decisions they’re quietly already considering.
Readiness Check
Ask yourself:
- Are we providing a meaningful estate planning resource?
- Are we offering a simple and clear next step?
- Are we highlighting authentic donor stories and examples?
- Can donors clearly see the impact their future gift could have?
- Are we helping donors solve a problem they’re already thinking about?
- Does each campaign touchpoint move a donor closer to meaningful engagement?
2. Do We Know Who’s Raising Their Hand and What Happens Next?
Campaign performance isn’t measured solely by completed gifts. One of the most valuable outcomes of a planned giving campaign is uncovering donor intent, and discovering those people who are ready to take certain steps to leave your organization in their estate plans (we call these people “Handraisers”). The reality is that most future legacy donors won’t notify you the moment they start considering a gift. However, their engagement behavior often provides the earliest indication.
Every opened email, resource request, webinar registration, planning conversation, and response card submission provides insight into who may be considering a legacy gift. These moments are more than engagement metrics – they’re signals.
Supporters reveal their interest over time through their behavior and interactions with your organization.
Those signals might include:
- Questions about your organization’s future sustainability
- Interest in endowment funding
- Increased engagement with mission-focused content
- Consistent giving over multiple years
- Life transitions, like retirement or buying a house
- Requests to learn more about long-term impact
- Event attendance
- Volunteering
The challenge here isn’t identifying these signals, but rather capturing them, understanding them, and acting on them thoughtfully. Because the strongest planned giving programs focus on understanding the donor and creating a clear process for responding when interest emerges.
Readiness Check
Ask yourself:
- Can we identify donors who have demonstrated planned giving interest?
- Are donor signals documented consistently?
- Is planned giving information integrated into the donor record?
- Are there clear next steps when a donor expresses interest?
- Can multiple staff members understand relationship history and continue the conversation?
Remember, the goal isn’t simply to identify interested donors. It’s to ensure every signal has a clear path to follow-up, stewardship, and relationship-building.
3. How will we measure success before the campaign begins?
Too many organizations wait until after a campaign ends to decide whether it was successful.
The strongest teams define success before the first email is sent, the first letter is mailed, or the first donor engages. Doing so helps align expectations, focus effort, and ensure the campaign is designed to achieve meaningful outcomes.
This is especially important in planned giving because success doesn’t always look like a documented gift. Planned giving is a long game.
A donor who requests additional information or schedules a conversation is taking a significant step forward, even if they aren’t ready to document a gift today.
The question isn’t simply whether gifts were closed. It’s whether the campaign created measurable movement along the donor journey.
Readiness Check
Ask yourself:
- Have we clearly defined what success looks like for this campaign?
- Are we tracking both engagement metrics and relationship-building outcomes?
- Do we have a process for monitoring campaign performance throughout the campaign?
- Are key stakeholders aligned on how success will be measured?
- Will we be able to connect campaign activity to future planned giving opportunities?
Depending on your goals, success metrics might include:
- Email open rates above 20%
- 3 new handraisers identified
- Gift intention form submissions
- Discovery conversations scheduled
- Legacy society inquiries
- Qualified planned giving leads generated
When your team can answer these questions confidently, you’ll finish the campaign with more than activity to report. You’ll have a clear understanding of the progress made and the insights needed to keep moving forward. The most effective teams decide what matters before the campaign begins.
The good news is that readiness isn’t about having a perfect campaign. It’s about creating the conditions for meaningful donor action when interest emerges.
The organizations that generate the strongest planned giving results this fall won’t necessarily be the ones sending the most emails or producing the most polished creative. They’ll be the ones with a clear strategy for engaging donors, identifying intent, and responding thoughtfully when donors raise their hands.
Because when a donor takes a step toward exploring their legacy, they’re trusting your organization with something deeply personal. The question isn’t whether your campaign will create opportunities. The question is whether your team is prepared to recognize them, nurture them, and turn them into lasting relationships.
That’s what being ready really means.
