Planned giving grows when the whole team treats it as part of everyday fundraising rather than one person’s program. That idea ran through our recent webinar with Aperio Philanthropy, where a panel of planned giving professionals talked honestly about how legacy giving gets siloed and how teams can bring it back into the center of the work.
Early on, the panel made a point that stuck with us: planned giving is one of the most inclusive ways to give. It doesn’t require a lot of disposable income, and anyone can make a planned gift.
That means legacy prospects are everywhere in your donor base, and anyone on your team might be the first to notice one. Here are the ideas that kept coming up, with ways to put each into practice.
1. Start with a shared understanding
You can’t ask colleagues to support something they can’t define. Collaboration starts when everyone understands what planned giving is and how committed these supporters are to the mission.
With that understanding in place, small things start happening on their own. Someone updating a brochure adds a line about gifts in a will, and the person at the front desk knows what to do when a caller mentions their estate plans.
Try this: Ask for a few minutes at an all-staff meeting once a quarter to cover what a planned gift is, how it supports the mission, and where each person fits.
2. Treat legacy gifts as a complement to current giving
Silos most often form at the principal gift and leadership level. Annual giving teams usually see the benefit quickly, because donors who make a legacy commitment often increase their annual giving over time.
The bigger missed opportunity is with top donors. When a major or principal gift is on the table, there’s often no conversation about adding an estate gift. Leaving that question out leaves real support on the table.
Try this: When planning a major gift ask, add one question to the strategy conversation: “Would this make sense as a blended gift, with a current gift and an estate commitment together?” If leadership hasn’t bought in yet, keep raising it politely. Framing legacy giving as a complement to current giving makes it easier to hear.
3. Teach everyone to identify green flags
Because planned giving is within reach for almost every supporter, legacy interest can surface anywhere, whether at an event or during a major gift visit. Think of these moments as green flags, and make sure the people who interact with supporters know what they mean.
Here are signals anyone on your team can learn to notice:
- No children. Donors with children make planned gifts too, but donors without children are especially likely to include a nonprofit in their estate plans. If you don’t have the conversation, that gift may go to another organization.
- Deepening engagement. Watch for donors who move from attending an event to volunteering to becoming regulars, or from a committee seat to the board. People who answer every newsletter or offer advice on your programs belong in this group too.
- Long, steady giving. Consistent gifts over many years, especially when they grow, signal a lasting connection.
- How they give. Gifts of stock or gifts through a donor-advised fund suggest a donor who is already thinking beyond cash.
Try this: Write a short, one-page list of green flags for your team. Pick a threshold that fits your team’s capacity.
4. Nobody has to be the expert
Many gift officers avoid legacy conversations because they worry they’ll have to answer every technical question that follows. For nearly every donor, that simply isn’t true. A gift officer who says, “That’s a great question, let me get back to you,” gets a natural reason to follow up and becomes a more trusted partner to the donor.
Planned giving can also be an added benefit to the donor relationship. The message to a major gift officer is simple: this is your relationship, and I’ll support you however helps most, whether that’s joining a visit, sitting in on a call, or working on a proposal behind the scenes.
Sometimes just being in the room is enough, and more people in the room usually helps. The biggest payoff is confidence, because a gift officer who watches a comfortable legacy conversation is far more ready to start the next one on their own.
Try this: Offer to join a few major gift visits this quarter with no agenda beyond being available, and make it clear the relationship stays with the gift officer.
5. Donors invest in the mission
This may have been the most important idea of the hour. Donors invest in the organization and its mission not in a gift officer or department. The question of who “owns” a donor gets much easier when teams remember this.
When several staff members know the same donor, the best approach is to center the donor. Who does the donor trust? Who do they say yes to when a meeting is requested? Follow that thread.
A few practices help teams work this way:
- The rule of three. Every top donor should have a relationship with at least three people at your organization. For a planned giving professional, this is a natural way to step in as a trusted resource that strengthens what the gift officer is already doing.
- Two staff at donor meetings. A second person keeps the conversation flowing, catches cues the other might miss, and offers a safety net for older donors, so nothing they share gets lost.
- Joint account management. Prepare for donor conversations together, map out the year’s plan for shared donors, debrief afterward, and log everything in the CRM. That way, each person knows when a colleague has made a call and can plan their next step around it.
Donors considering a significant investment notice when a team works together smoothly. That can make a real difference in what they decide to give.
Try this: Pick two or three shared donors and hold a 15-minute planning session with the other staff who know them. Agree on who reaches out next and what you’ll each listen for.
6. Build collaboration into team workflow
Good intentions fade without structure behind them. Build collaboration into routines your team already has.
Join portfolio reviews. These meetings are already on the calendar and focused on specific donors, asks, and timing. Planned giving staff should ask to join, even once a quarter. If there’s no formal opening, a conversation over lunch works too, and polite persistence pays off.
Set shared goals. Individual goals still matter, but pairing them with department goals changes behavior. If each gift officer has a goal to work with planned giving on two or three donors, they’ll want the planned giving lead in their portfolio review. Goals that reward the visits and touch points leading to an ask encourage more collaboration than dollar totals alone, and that work pays off, since a large realized bequest is often what pushes an organization past its annual goal.
Give credit generously. When a blended gift involves several people and departments, credit everyone who helped and celebrate the gift openly. When the whole team sees success shared, collaboration starts to feel like the normal way of working.
7. Be consistent
Planned gifts often take years to arrive, so the outreach you do today pays off long after it goes out. If budgets are tight, scale back your outreach rather than stopping it.
Some practical ways to keep the message going:
- Simple marketing works. Add content about gifts in a will to the communications you already send, like newsletters and emails. A short question such as “Did you know you can include us in your will?” gives donors an easy way to raise their hand.
- Make the legacy society visible. Celebrate legacy society members at events and on your website, so everyone knows who they are.
- Use surveys. Try donor surveys that ask about communication preferences and favorite programs, with one planned giving question mixed in. One caution: only send what you can follow up on. If capacity is limited, survey in segments on a rolling basis.
- Don’t forget volunteers. If your organization limits direct outreach to volunteers, look at what they already receive. Where it’s allowed, include planned giving messaging so volunteers can raise their hands on their own.
If you’re being pushed to drop marketing in favor of cash asks, look at how much of your revenue comes from realized planned gifts, then show leadership what happens to that number if the pipeline stops being fed.
Where to start
You don’t need a full planned giving department to put these ideas to work. Pick one or two that fit your team:
- Give a five-minute planned giving overview at your next all-staff meeting
- Share a one-page list of green flags with everyone who talks to donors
- Ask to sit in on one portfolio review this quarter
- Add a blended gift question to your major gift planning
- Plan your next shared donor touch point with a colleague
- Look at how much revenue realized planned gifts brought in last year
Planned giving works best as a natural part of the relationships your organization already has with its supporters, and those relationships belong to the whole team.
