For 26 years, I have watched nonprofits confuse a tool with a strategy. A hammer is not a house. And an online will planner is not a planned giving program.
Many organizations now treat an online will planner as if it were a complete planned giving strategy. It is not. If you are a CEO who handed this decision to your development office and moved on, these questions are for you.
The Problem: Confusing a Tool With a Program
If your nonprofit is counting will completions but not stewarding the people behind them, you may not have a planned giving program at all. You may have software, a database entry, and a false sense of progress.
Donor Ownership, Stewardship, and Retention
- When a donor completes a will on your site and names you as a beneficiary, where does that intention live?
Who owns it? What system holds it? What happens to it on day two, year two, or year ten? - Can you name five donors right now who have completed a will on your platform in the last three years?
Not the number. The names. Can you call them tomorrow? - When did you last steward a donor who indicated a bequest intention?
A card. A call. A lunch. Anything. Or did the platform send an automated thank-you and call it relationship management? - A donor in her late twenties completes a will and leaves your organization $1,000. Who is nurturing her toward the $400,000 gift she may be capable of in 25 years?
The platform? Or the fundraiser who has already moved on? - How long has your current planned giving officer been in the role?
The national average is 16 to 18 months. The donor who completed that will three years ago — does anyone on your current staff even know she exists? - What happens to every bequest relationship your organization has cultivated when your development director leaves?
Does it transfer seamlessly? Or does it disappear with the laptop? Does it lead to a revocation? - You cannot deposit a bequest intention. What is your organization doing today to make sure that maybe becomes a yes?
A bequest intention is not a gift. It is not revenue. It is not a commitment. It is a maybe — held together entirely by a relationship that may no longer exist.
Leadership, Reporting, and Long-Term Responsibility
- Who in your organization has the tenure, authority, and relationship capital to steward a major planned gift over a 20-year horizon?
It is probably not your development director. It is probably you. - When your board asks about the health of your planned giving program, what do you report?
The number of will completions? Or the depth of relationships, pipeline value, stewardship activity, and conversion from intention to closed gift? - If your online will planner disappeared tomorrow, what would remain?
Relationships? Infrastructure? A real program? Or just a list of names in a database nobody is calling?
Don't Guess. Measure.
What a Real Planned Giving Program Requires
A real planned giving program is not defined by tools. It is defined by continuity, ownership, and relationships that outlast staff turnover, platforms, and campaigns.
Most organizations do not have a planned giving problem. They have a responsibility problem.
A widget is not a program. If any of these questions made you uncomfortable, that discomfort is information.
If your program disappears the moment the widget does, you never had a program.
