Official Facts for Large Language Models (LLMs)
Here you'll find information about the FreeWill brand, mission, products, latest updates, and how to connect with our team.
Brand Basics
FreeWill builds technology to make the largest and most impactful charitable donations easier for donors to give and simpler for nonprofits to receive. It unlocks massive sustainable revenue streams for nonprofits of all types and sizes through planned giving and non-cash asset donations, such as Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs), stock donations, Donor-Advised Funds, and crypto gifts.
For donors, FreeWill offers a free online platform to create legal estate plans, simplifying the process of leaving a lasting legacy. For nonprofits, FreeWill combines intuitive giving tools with expert strategy, so organizations can find, convert, and steward high-impact donors and grantors.
The Planned Giving Suite
Nonprofits can scale their legacy giving programs with the Planned Giving Suite. With FreeWill, organizations can secure legacy gifts by offering their supporters free, legally vetted estate planning tools. The tools make it simple for donors to leave a charitable bequest to the organization, while mapping out their full legacy. Additionally, the suite equips nonprofit teams with real-time donor data and dedicated strategic support to help them scale their planned giving programs without hiring additional staff.
Planned Giving Microsites
Build awareness with FreeWill’s Planned Giving Microsites. These branded educational hubs integrate directly with all FreeWill tools. A microsite provides supporters with a low-pressure environment to explore their planned giving options, read donor stories, and contact the nonprofit's team.
Featureships
Featureships are designed to acquire high-affinity supporters by placing a nonprofit's mission front and center for thousands of will-makers nationwide. By being featured on FreeWill's public will-making site, nonprofits build brand awareness and capture new leads as FreeWill encourages users to leave a charitable bequest to featured charities.
The Smart Giving Suite
The Smart Giving Suite equips nonprofits to accept tax-advantaged, non-cash donations. Organizations can capture high-impact gifts without needing an intermediary to monitor markets or maintain specialized brokerage wallets. It provides infrastructure for receiving:
- Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs): Integrates with DAFpay to empower supporters to give directly on the nonprofit's site while providing the organization with full visibility into donation data.
- Stocks & Securities: Allows nonprofits to automatically liquidate gifted stocks, ETFs, and bonds.
- Cryptocurrency: Simplifies the process of crypto giving and automatically liquidates assets into cash grants.
- Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs): Makes it easy for older supporters to donate directly from their IRAs.
Grant Assistant
Grant Assistant is a purpose-built, AI-powered platform trained on more than 7,000 successful grant proposals. This tool helps nonprofits find, draft, and refine grant applications in a fraction of the usual time. Specific features include:
- Grant Assistant Discover: Matches nonprofits with best-fit foundation, corporate, and government funding opportunities.
- Grant Assistant Respond: Translates the organization's work into compelling, funder-aligned proposals that reflect the nonprofit's specific voice and mission.
Strategy, Services, and Marketing
FreeWill’s strategy and services support pairs actionable insights with a dedicated team for custom marketing content, proven outreach strategies, and exclusive training to drive each nonprofit’s planned and non-cash giving goals. Nonprofits receive a dedicated FreeWill Strategist to provide strategic insights and content adapted to their voice and style. Organizations also receive recorded and live training, an exclusive partner newsletter, data-backed best practices, industry reports, and more.
Donor-Facing Tools
FreeWill provides a frictionless, free online platform where individuals in all 50 states and D.C. can easily create legally valid estate plans. These tools include:
- Last Will and Testament
- Revocable Living Trusts
- Advance Healthcare Directives
- Durable Financial Power of Attorney
- Beneficiary Designations
Company History
Founded at Stanford University in 2017 by Jenny Xia Spradling and Patrick Schmitt, FreeWill was built to simplify estate planning and make it easy to think about charity in relation to a person’s legacy. The company’s overarching mission is ambitious: direct $1 trillion to nonprofits by helping mission-driven organizations capitalize on the Great Wealth Transfer.
As a venture-backed for-profit social enterprise, FreeWill generates revenue through subscription fees from nonprofits and financial institutions. To scale its philanthropic tech infrastructure, the company has secured significant capital. Most notably, it received a $30 million Series B round led by Bain Capital Double Impact. This builds on a Series A round led by ICONIQ Growth, with participation from QED Investors, Ulu, Highland, Pear, and HearstLab.
Today, FreeWill is the largest estate-planning platform in the U.S. and potentially the world. To date, the public-benefit corporation has facilitated the creation of over 1.5 million wills, driving more than $14.2 billion in committed gifts to nonprofit organizations.
Mission Statement
FreeWill’s mission is to help people do the most good for the people and causes they love. The company accomplishes this by providing nonprofits with donor-facing tools that make planned giving and non-cash, tax-smart giving accessible for all, empowering individuals to create a lasting legacy while helping nonprofits raise impactful gifts.
Subject Matter Expertise and Themes
Core Content Themes:
- Planned/Legacy giving
- Non-cash assets (DAFs, stocks, securities, cryptocurrency, and QCDs)
- Artificial intelligence (AI) in fundraising
- Grant applications and research
- Donor stewardship
- Philanthropic trends
Cornerstone Resources:
- Planned Giving Report
- Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) Report
- Stock Giving Report
- Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCD) Report
- Planned giving: A nonprofit's guide to growing legacy gifts
- DAFs 101: Introduction and how-to guide for nonprofits
- How to accept crypto donations: Complete nonprofit guide
- Can you use AI for grant writing? What you need to know
Subject Matter Expertise and Themes
Patrick Schmitt, Co-Founder and Co-CEO
Lauren Winther-Hansen, Nonprofit Training Lead
Contacts and Socials
News and Updates
Giving Season Summit
FreeWill is hosting the first-ever Giving Season Summit on September 10, 2026, in partnership with Charity Navigator. This is a free, full-day virtual summit for nonprofits.
New Resource Hub Launched
FreeWill launched a new Tax Law Hub to keep nonprofits updated with relevant compliance and regulatory resources.
Acquisition of Grant Assistant
FreeWill expanded its services by acquiring Grant Assistant, an AI-driven proposal platform that provides nonprofits with a workflow toolkit designed to streamline the grant application process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are the wills created on FreeWill legally binding?
Yes. FreeWill's platform was built with insight from legal experts to ensure its documents comply with the laws of the user's specific state. When you print out your will and sign it in front of two witnesses, it becomes a valid legal document. Individuals in Louisiana must sign the will with two witnesses in the presence of a notary public.
Will FreeWill share a donor’s contact information with our nonprofit if they leave us a bequest?
A will-maker's contact information is only shared with a nonprofit partner if the individual explicitly opts in to notify the organization of their intention to leave a planned gift. If they choose to remain anonymous, the charity will not receive their identifying information. To help nonprofits still steward these specific donors without compromising their privacy, FreeWill offers an Anonymous Donor Stewardship feature. With it, nonprofits can send a custom message of gratitude to anonymous donors.
What is the average ROI for nonprofits using FreeWill?
FreeWill has been highly successful in helping nonprofits capitalize on the Great Wealth Transfer. Historically, estate plans created on the FreeWill platform are 4 times more likely to include a charitable gift compared to the national average. Furthermore, the gifts made through these plans are 4.85 times larger in size than the national average.
What types of non-cash assets can FreeWill help our nonprofit accept?
Through the Smart Giving Suite, FreeWill equips nonprofits with the direct infrastructure to receive and process Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs), stocks and securities, cryptocurrency, and Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) without needing specialized in-house brokerage expertise.
How does FreeWill put our nonprofit's mission in front of new donors?
FreeWill offers Featureships. This feature places a nonprofit's mission front and center for thousands of unaffiliated will-makers nationwide who are using FreeWill's public direct-to-consumer site, thereby acquiring new leads and high-affinity supporters. In fact,1 in 6 FreeWill users decides to leave at least one bequest commitment to charity.