How to Build a Planned Giving Program Before the Baby Boom Bequests Pass You By
Every day, approximately 6,000 Baby Boomers die in the United States. Most of them have wealth that their favorite causes will never see. This isn’t because they don’t want to give, but because no one asked them to think about it. That gap between donor intent and realized gifts is one of the most expensive missed opportunities in the nonprofit sector, and it is happening right now.
The numbers will surprise you. Projections through 2048 estimate that $123.7 trillion of wealth will transfer between generations, with nearly two-thirds of that coming from Baby Boomers. An esitmated $11.9 trillion will be donated to nonprofits through bequests by 2045.
According to Giving USA 2025, total charitable giving in the United States reached $592.5 billion in 2024 and bequests accounted 8% or $45.84 billion of that total. When you factor in how big the aging Boomer population is, it’s easy to see why nonprofits need to implement a planned giving strategy.
Why Baby Boomers Are the Donors You Cannot Afford to Ignore
Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are currently responsible for approximately 43% of all charitable giving in the United States. Their average household net worth is between $970,000 and $1.2 million,thanks to real estate appreciation, stock market growth, and two-income households. As the Chronicle of Philanthropy notes, they are the first generation in which dual-income households were the norm, and they had fewer children than prior generations.
Nearly 4.2 million Americans will turn 65 in 2026, the high point of what some demographers call Peak 65. This is not a slow demographic shift. It is a rolling wave of estate planning conversations happening in attorneys’ offices and financial planning sessions across the country. These are conversations your organization could be part of if your fundraisers are prepared.
What motivates Boomers to give? They are loyal. Research from the Association of Fundraising Professionals shows that 68% of Baby Boomers are subscribed to a nonprofit’s email newsletter, the highest of any generation. They expect regular non-fundraising communication, transparent financial reporting, and genuine stories that show their dollars at work. They also tend to give through email and Facebook rather than mobile apps. Meeting them through the channels they already use is critical for stewardship and cultivation.
The Uncomfortable Reality About Wills and Your Donor List
Before your nonprofit can start planning on receiving these gifts, keep in mind that only 24% of Americans currently have a will according to Giving USA’s 2025 data. More than half of all Americans have no estate planning documents at all. This widespread avoidance of basic estate planning is a direct reason why bequest giving declined 1.6% in actual dollars in 2024 despite the tremendous resources of the Baby Boomer generation.
This can also be an opportunity for your nonprofits. Donors who include charitable giving in their annual budget donate nearly three times more on average than those who do not plan their giving. Helping your donors get to the point of estate planning, even if the educational push comes from your organization, positions you as a trusted resource and keeps your mission front of mind when making financial plans.
Starting the Legacy Conversation Without Derailing It
Many fundraisers are nervous about planned giving conversations due to the morbidity of death conversations. However, successful giving officers focus on mission and legacy rather than mortality.
According to NonProfit Pro, the most practical sign to watch for is a donor commenting, “I wish I could do more.” That comment can open the door to productive conversation with a response like, “Have you ever thought about how your estate plan might reflect that wish?”
Other ways to start these conversations include:
Surveys: Send a stewardship survey to your loyal donors asking what impact means to them and whether they have included your organization in their estate plans. Donors who have already made the commitment but never disclosed it will often self-identify. Those who have not may begin thinking about it for the first time.
Educational events. Host an estate planning workshop in partnership with a local estate attorney or community foundation. Frame it as a service to your donors, not a fundraising ask. The goal is to normalize legacy conversations and reduce the anxiety people feel around wills and estate documents.
Consistent messaging. Add a planned giving note to your email signature. Mention legacy giving briefly in your newsletter. The ask does not need to be dramatic to be effective. One guidance on legacy society programs recommends something as simple as: “When you make a planned gift to our organization, you join like-minded supporters helping us create lasting change for generations to come.”
Don’t forget your female donors! Research consistently shows that women are more likely to give to charity than men at comparable wealth levels and women are projected to control two-thirds of U.S. wealth by 2030.
Tracking Planned Giving Intentions in Your CRM
A planned gift commitment is not a realized gift. It is a relationship signal, and it demands a different kind of tracking than your typical donation record.
Most development professionals recommend against mixing planned gift intentions with your active database. Because bequest intentions are non-binding and the disbursement date is unknown, folding them into revenue projections creates confusion and uncertainty. It’s better to create seperate custom fields, tags or keywords within your CRM to note a planned giving status.
The most useful categories to track include if a donor has shared bequest information, where they are in the giving cycle, and when you last contacted them. GivingDocs recommends tagging contacts with designations like “legacy society member,” “bequest intention,” and “moves management stage”so that reporting reflects what communication is helping and moving these conversations forward.
With Julep, you can easily track these asks through Actions, Attributes, and Notes in People Profiles. If you set up an Attribute for “Planned Giving,” you can easily do a search for everyone who has committed to leaving a bequest. Additionally, Julep has options to create membership clubs that you can utilize to capture all planned giving donors. You can also set up Moves Management to include planned giving asks and gradually move the donor through the giving process with scheduled reminders to keep you on track.
One search to run in your database is to look for donors who have given more than seven or more consecutive years. These supporters are more likely to make a planned gift. NonProfit PRO’s reporting on legacy society building suggests prioritizing these donors for legacy conversations before any broader outreach. Like all other fundraising, the depth of relationship predicts intent better than gift size, and these donors should be approached personally through a visit or phone call.
Building a Sustainable Planned Giving Program on a Budget
The good news for organizations without a major gifts program is a basic planned giving campaign can be launched for under $5,000. It’s easier than most development staff anticipate!
Start with bequests. Nine out of ten planned gifts are simple bequests. The vehicle requires no complex legal activity on your end. A donor names your organization as a beneficiary in their will. That is the ask, and it is genuinely accessible to donors at any income level.
Create a legacy society. According to the Nonprofit Learning Lab, you can launch a planned giving society with as few as four to six planned giving donors. Give the society a name. Create a simple recognition page on your website. Share donor stories with their permission.
Add a planned giving page to your website. Include sample bequest language, a one-paragraph explanation of what a bequest is, and a clear contact for interested donors. Add links throughout your site that point to this page to ensure donors can find the information without a conversation having to initiate it.
Integrate legacy messaging into what you already send. Annual reports, stewardship newsletters, gift acknowledgment letters, and email campaigns can each carry a brief planned giving mention without requiring a dedicated campaign budget.
Partner for complexity. For donors interested in charitable gift annuities, charitable remainder trusts, or other complex vehicles, a relationship with your local community foundation gives you a referral path without requiring in-house legal expertise.
The Organizations That Wait Will Pay for It
The Chronicle of Philanthropy noted that past projections for generational wealth flowing to charity have not always materialized. However, the demographic signals of Baby Boomers are different. They are larger and wealthier than any previous generation. Estate planning conversations are happening, and donors, who update their wills this year and do not include your organization, may not revisit those documents for another decade.
The nonprofits that build legacy societies now, that train gift officers to recognize planned giving opportunities, and use their CRMs to track and steward these relationships systematically will benefit from the $11.9 trillion headed toward the charitable sector.