August gets a lot of attention in planned giving circles, and for good reason. Make-A-Will Month (MAWM) gives fundraisers a rare thing: a natural, low-pressure reason to talk about wills without it feeling like a big ask. But the campaigns that actually move the needle for an organization’s legacy program aren’t measured by August alone. They’re measured by what happens in September, October, and beyond, once the emails stop going out and the real follow-through begins.
Every organization is at a different point in that work. For some teams, what follows will read as a list you check off every year. For others, it’s a starting point for a practice that doesn’t exist yet. Both are fine. The goal here isn’t a single right answer. It’s a set of ideas worth weighing against what your program is actually doing.
Start with who actually engaged, not just who opened an email
Before planning anything new, pull the list of everyone who clicked, downloaded, started an estate plan, completed one, or replied to a MAWM email in August. This is often one of the warmest audiences a legacy program sees all year, and it rarely gets treated that way.
A useful starting segmentation:
- Donors who disclosed that they included your organization in their plans
- Donors who completed a will or estate plan
- Donors who started but didn’t finish
- Donors who engaged but took no further action
Those groups may overlap, but they do not mean the same thing. Completing an estate plan is an important engagement milestone. Telling your organization that a legacy gift has been included is a stewardship milestone, and usually calls for a more personal response.
Not every August interaction requires a call from a gift officer, either. Use campaign engagement alongside what you already know about the donor, such as giving history, tenure, volunteer involvement, or previous conversations, to decide where personal outreach is most likely to be welcome and useful.
Worth revisiting: the “started but didn’t finish” group, aka Handraisers
This group is often one of the largest, and it’s easy to overlook because it feels less exciting than a completed plan or disclosed gift. But a donor who got partway through the process has still shown meaningful interest in estate planning.
The key is to follow up without making the donor feel monitored.
Rather than referencing their specific behavior, a short, supportive message that keeps the door open can be better received: a reminder that your team is available if they have questions, or a note sharing helpful resources if they’re still thinking about their plans.
For some of the donors in this group, it may also be appropriate for personal outreach from a gift officer, especially when the engagement aligns with a strong existing donor relationship. For programs without that capacity, even a warm email from a person on the team can be a meaningful touch point.
The goal is not to create urgency. It’s to make it easy for the donor to continue the conversation when they’re ready.
Lead with thanks before the next ask
If someone tells you they included your organization in their estate plans, think carefully about what they hear from you next. It’s worth making sure it isn’t another ask.
Gratitude, ideally personal and specific, matters here. A handwritten note, a call from your executive director or gift officer, or an invitation to a legacy society gathering can all signal that the donor’s decision was seen and valued, not simply recorded in a database.
This stewardship should also reflect the donor’s preferences. Some people value public recognition and legacy society membership. Others would rather remain anonymous and receive quiet, personal thanks.
Thoughtful stewardship can deepen a donor’s connection to the organization and create opportunities over time for continued conversation about their intentions. More importantly, it reinforces that the relationship matters beyond the transaction.
Turn campaign data into a conversation with leadership
Make-A-Will Month generates data that’s useful well beyond the campaign itself: how many people engaged, what content resonated, where donors dropped off in the process, and which interactions turned into actual conversations.
Bring it to your next leadership or board meeting, not as a report card, but as a planning input.
Alongside email opens and clicks, tracking metrics such as these tends to tell a fuller story:
- New legacy inquiries
- Estate plans started and completed
- Disclosed legacy intentions
- Qualified follow-up opportunities
- Donor conversations generated
- New legacy society members
- Estimated or known gift value, when appropriate
- Conversion over the next six to twelve months
This longer window matters. A donor who first engages in August may not make or disclose a legacy commitment until months later.
If a meaningful share of supporters started an estate plan and pause in the next step, that’s also a signal about the process, not just about the donors. Strong legacy programs treat that as diagnostic information and adjust marketing, education and tools before the next campaign rather than repeat the same friction point a year from now.
October and other outreach opportunities
A handful of low-key touches through September and October can keep planned giving in view without adding to donor fatigue:
- A short story in your regular newsletter about why a donor chose to leave a legacy gift
- A note in your annual appeal that legacy giving is always an option, not something tied to one month
- A simple mention at donor events that your team is available for legacy conversations year-round
- A brief reminder on your website or in your email footer that estate planning resources remain available as a benefit
- October’s National Estate Planning Awareness Week (NEPAW) is a natural, low-pressure moment to send resource-focused messaging and reminders
None of this needs to be loud. Supporters act when they’re ready, so this work positions your cause to stay top of mind, and your resources easy to find when that moment comes. It’s a quiet signal that planned giving didn’t disappear the moment the campaign calendar moved on, and your mission and team are ready when they are.
Use this quieter window to build internal readiness
Fall is also a useful time to strengthen internal readiness before the intensity of year-end fundraising begins.
A few questions worth sitting with:
- Does the gift officer team know how to bring up legacy giving in everyday conversation, not just during a campaign?
- Is the legacy giving page still easy to find, or did it get buried once the campaign banners came down?
- Is there a simple way to log and track legacy gift conversations, so that knowledge doesn’t live in one person’s inbox alone?
- Does the annual giving team know when and how to refer a donor to planned giving?
- Is there a clear stewardship process for donors who disclose a legacy commitment?
- Will planned giving remain visible once year-end appeals start dominating the calendar?
None of this requires a major lift. It mostly requires deciding that planned giving is a year-round discipline rather than a one-month campaign, and building just enough structure to support that.
The bigger picture
Make-A-Will Month is a star ingredient in the recipe, but is not the whole meal. The organizations that build strong legacy programs over time tend to be the ones that treat the weeks after a campaign with the same seriousness as the campaign itself, choose warmth over urgency in their follow-up, and leave the door open for donors who are still thinking it over.
The opportunity isn’t simply to run a stronger Make-A-Will Month next year. It’s to use August engagement to build a stronger legacy program all year long.
Where does your program sit on that spectrum? Pick one thing from above worth trying this fall.
