Major gifts: What you need to know for fundraising success

When a donor chooses to make a planned gift to your nonprofit, it’s a powerful moment. Not only is that donor cementing their support for your cause as part of their personal legacy, but they’re also offering long-term, vital financial support. In fact, in recent years, the average planned donation has surpassed $48,000.

However, cultivating, tracking, and finalizing legacy gifts can be time-consuming and intimidating. Luckily, specialized planned giving software solutions streamline the entire process for both your team and your donors.

To support your decision-making process, we’ll cover what legacy giving software is and the essential features that make it a necessary tool for your nonprofit.

What is planned giving software?

Planned giving software is a specialized suite of digital tools designed to help nonprofits market, secure, track, and manage various types of legacy gifts—such as bequests, charitable trusts, and beneficiary designations.

Using software specifically designed for legacy gifting is critical for development teams because it increases visibility for long-term revenue options and streamlines complex workflows. By allowing your software to automate cumbersome administrative tasks—like tracking document statuses, sending educational marketing materials, and calculating future gift values—you can create more time for your major gift officers to focus on what they do best: building meaningful, face-to-face relationships with your most passionate supporters.

Who uses planned giving tools?

Organizations of all shapes and sizes—from local nonprofits and religious organizations to healthcare foundations and higher education institutions—rely on planned giving software to secure their financial futures.

Within these organizations, planned giving software will improve the daily workflow of many critical roles:

• Planned giving and major gift officers: Your frontline fundraisers can use the software to identify high-propensity prospects, track long-term relationship touchpoints, and manage the complex stewardship process from initial interest to document execution.
• Marketing and communications teams: Marketing teams leverage legacy giving tools to build branded educational microsites that teach donors why and how to make planned gifts, launch targeted email campaigns, and track which messaging resonates most with potential legacy donors.
• Finance and operations teams: Finance professionals rely on the platform’s reporting features to calculate the Net Present Value (NPV) of deferred gifts, track compliance, and securely manage legally binding documents for future audits.
• Executive leadership and board members: Leadership uses the high-level dashboard metrics from your software to forecast future revenue, assess the health of the planned giving pipeline, and measure the ROI of the development team's efforts. These insights lend themselves to smarter decision-making going forward.

How does planned giving software differ from traditional fundraising tools?

Unlike standard fundraising software built for immediate donations, purpose-built planned giving platforms are engineered for the long-term lifecycle of a legacy gift. While traditional platforms are excellent at what they do, they are fundamentally mismatched with the demands of the planned giving process. Trying to accept planned gifts using the wrong software can result in lost data, missed opportunities, and immense frustration for your team.

Take grant management software, for example. This software excels at tracking complex application deadlines, managing foundation pipelines, and handling post-award compliance reporting. However, its architecture is strictly built for institutional funders and cyclical awards, not for cultivating deeply personal, individual legacy gifts.

Similarly, standard Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) platforms and annual fundraising tools are built for volume and velocity. They can process credit card transactions, manage gala registrations, and track recurring monthly gifts. These systems operate on short timelines and are ill-suited for accepting gifts that might not hit your organization’s bank account for decades.

Planned giving software, on the other hand, is built for a completely different paradigm:

• Extended timelines: Planned giving software is designed to automate long-term stewardship without letting prospects slip through the cracks over time.
• Complex asset tracking: Rather than just logging cash or credit card payments, planned giving tools track nuanced, non-cash assets like stock transfers, real estate, donor-advised funds (DAFs), and life insurance policies.
• Legal document status: Unlike a simple "pledge" field in a CRM, legacy giving requires tracking the status of sensitive legal documents, such as wills and trusts, from initial intent to final execution.
• Relational vs. transactional focus: The donor journey in planned giving is more personal, relying on ongoing education and legacy planning rather than high-pressure, short-term appeals.

Core planned giving software features to know

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When evaluating a legacy giving platform for your organization, you need to look past basic contact management. The best tools actively reduce friction for both your staff and your donors. Here are the core features you should look for when building your planned giving infrastructure:

Gift acceptance and tracking

Standard CRMs are built for cash. But what happens when a donor wants to leave you a percentage of their IRA, complex assets like cryptocurrency, or a charitable remainder trust? You need specialized tools that can accommodate a donor's deferred gift intent and track complex, specific asset types. Proper gift acceptance tracking ensures that long-term pledges aren't lost in the shuffle and that your organization is legally and operationally prepared to receive the asset when the time comes.

Automated workflows

Because planned gifts can take decades to mature, maintaining consistent communication is both an imperative and a massive challenge. Your planned giving tools must include automated workflows to trigger regular follow-up tasks, stewardship cadences, and anniversary reminders. This automation keeps your organization top-of-mind and builds lasting relationships without requiring your staff to rely on sticky notes or manual calendar alerts to track every touchpoint over a 20-year span.

Integrated marketing and microsite capabilities

Education is arguably the biggest hurdle in planned giving. Most donors might be interested in leaving a bequest, but simply don't know how to. Your planned giving software should help you market your planned giving options, showing donors how easy it is to secure their legacy with your organization.

Look for platforms that offer integrated marketing tools, specifically the ability to create a branded planned giving microsite. These visually appealing, easily navigable landing pages help explain the planned giving process in plain language, breaking down complex legal jargon and guiding donors through each step. Check out this example of the Humane Society of Pikes Peak Region’s microsite created with FreeWill:

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Frictionless donor-facing tools

Your planned giving software should include frictionless, donor-facing tools for various types of contributions. For example, intuitive, online will creation tools allow your supporters to generate legally binding documents and easily name your nonprofit as a beneficiary in just a few clicks, drastically lowering the barrier to entry.

Reporting and forecasting

Development teams rely on robust reporting features to calculate the NPV of deferred gifts and accurately estimate future revenue. This forecasting data is absolutely essential for tracking the health of your planned giving pipeline, making informed hiring and program decisions, and proving the tangible ROI of your legacy giving marketing efforts to your board of directors.

Secure document management & compliance

Your software must include secure, compliant storage for the highly sensitive documents involved in planned giving. This ensures all legal paperwork, intent forms, and copies of wills are safely archived in one centralized location. Having a reliable, easily accessible audit trail protects your nonprofit, honors the donor's exact wishes, and drastically simplifies the future probate process.

FreeWill’s planned giving software

If you’re ready to make more meaningful connections with donors and secure your nonprofit’s future, FreeWill’s Planned Giving Suite is the solution you need to market, manage, and secure legacy gifts effectively.

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Our Planned Giving Suite provides an all-in-one ecosystem that pairs powerful backend management with beautiful, user-friendly donor tools. Some of its key features include:

• Will-making tools: Give your donors a free, intuitive way to write their legal wills and easily leave a bequest to your organization.
• Custom legacy microsites: Launch a dedicated, branded hub to educate supporters on bequests, revocable living trusts, beneficiary designations, and any other legacy gifts you accept with FreeWill. You can also highlight other complex giving vehicles like DAFs, crypto, and stock gifts.
• Real-time analytics dashboard: Track newly secured gifts, monitor pipeline growth, and generate reports for your board instantly.
• Marketing templates and support: Access a library of proven email, direct mail, and social media templates designed specifically to convert legacy prospects.

Don't just take our word for it. See how the American Heart Association generated more than $65 million from 1,400 will bequests with FreeWill:

Making the most of your planned giving tools

Securing a legacy gift is a testament to the incredible trust your donors have in your mission. But honoring that trust requires the right infrastructure. Planned giving software empowers your team to work smarter, steward donors more effectively, and create long-term financial stability for your organization.

The right tools take the administrative burden off your shoulders so you can get back to doing what matters most: connecting with your community and building a lasting legacy.

To learn more, check out these resources:

• How to start a planned giving program: Step-by-step guide: Ensure your planned giving program is built on proven best practices by following these simple steps.
• 10 types of planned gifts your nonprofit should know: Learn about the many forms planned gifts can take to ensure you’re appealing to donors’ interests.
• How to start an endowment: A roadmap to long-term stability: Endowment funds are another powerful way to secure long-term sustainability for your mission. Discover the relationship between legacy giving and endowment in this guide.

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