Legacy Giving: Tomorrow’s Donor Impact Starts Today

The most meaningful gift a donor can make to your organization is one that keeps giving after they aren’t here to provide it themselves. Becoming the beneficiary of a donor’s legacy giving is the result of your stewardship efforts, starting from their first donation leading up to participating in a program of planned giving. 

But it all takes time, starting with the first step of identifying and qualifying the right “entry-level” donors. Through proper relationship cultivation, you’ll find and nurture those individuals whose emotional, personal connection, and mission commitment make them the ideal legacy donors. Success is only possible when you engage your entire organization—officers, board, team members, volunteers, existing donors, and more. Working together, you can build a culture of ongoing personal and financial donor engagement. 

Legacy giving versus planned giving

While planned and legacy giving are both long-term donor financial commitments, there is a subtle, but distinct, difference: legacy giving is planned giving that happens after a donor passes away. 

Planned giving is exactly that: a structured giving program based on financial planning that covers both current and future donations. A donor works with an advisor to set up a program that disburses money from various financial vehicles—trusts, stock portfolios, retirement accounts, and others—to endow an organization on a regular schedule while they’re alive and after they’ve passed. Read this guide from Altrata for more about developing a planned giving strategy. 

Legacy giving is a subset of planned giving that begins after a donor’s passing and allows their philanthropic interests to continue, often flowing through an estate plan. A legacy giving plan will encompass many of the same financial tools as found in planned giving, with the addition of direct bequests.  

Why is legacy giving important?

The answer is in one number: $592.5 billion. That’s how much Giving USA reported was donated in 2024 through charitable giving. But how do you get your needed share of that financial pie?  

Organizations in every field—including nonprofits, education, and healthcare—struggle with maintaining a steady, consistent stream of fundraising and operating income. Donor dispersal and retention, uncertain economics, limited internal prospecting and stewardship resources, and more all impact the ability to identify and retain top-tier donors.  

A legacy giving campaign can reduce fundraising and donor retention headwinds through: 

• Predictable funding. A regular source of income can let you better strategize your annual budget and operations—how much money you’ll have for staffing, marketing, outreach, campaigns, etc. 
• Increased engagement. If your stewardship has gotten a donor to the legacy giving table, you’ve not only created an individual sufficiently engaged to include you in their estate plan but also ready to increase their support during their lifetime. 
• Extended relationships. If a donor has a family, they’ll likely be involved in general estate planning discussions and decisions, including legacy giving. When family members understand the importance of your organization to the donor—and if you include them in your stewardship—you have a greater chance of creating generational donor relationships and pipelines. 

The financial face of legacy giving

What does a legacy gift look like?

There are many ways a donor can continue supporting your mission when they aren’t here to do so. 

• Receive a bequest. A donor can include you in their estate plan by bequeathing cash, investments, real estate, and personal property. 
• Become a beneficiary. A donor can designate you as the beneficiary of their retirement accounts—including 401(k)s and IRAs—and life insurance policies, as well as grants from donor-advised funds (DAFs). 
• Create a charitable annuity or trust. Through charitable annuities and trusts, you can establish vehicles for a donor or you to receive income on donations you invest, while providing you a potentially sizeable gift in the future.
• Build an endowment. Endowments can make a seismic shift in an organization’s long-term financial strength. A donor makes a sizeable gift that is earmarked for a financial purpose, invested, and grows earnings. The principle remains untouched; a portion of the earnings is annually put toward the designated purpose, while the excess earnings are reinvested. With proper oversight, an endowment can become a self-sustaining source of funding.

Types of charitable annuities and trusts

• Charitable Gift Annuity: Essentially, a contract between you and a donor, where you receive a donation, typically large, which you put into a reserve account and invest. The donor benefits from both tax deductions and a fixed stream of income you pay from the annuity—either for a set term or for life. When the donor passes, you keep the remainder of the gift.
• Charitable Remainder Trust: Similar to a charitable gift annuity, except the donor’s income is based on a percentage of their donation and the term is up to 20 years or life.
• Charitable Lead Trust: These act in the reverse of charitable gift annuities and remainder trusts: Your organization earns income for a set term, with the remaining assets going back to the donor’s heirs when they pass.

Make it about the donor first, then make it about you

Turning your most dedicated and engaged donors—especially those with a deep, personal connection and exceptional resources—into legacy givers has to start with them. 

According to Caring, the number of Americans with a will decreased from 33% in 2022 to 25% in 2025—and whether due to procrastination or disinterest, even those with considerable assets are lacking a plan for the inevitable…and younger generations are falling farther behind their predecessors in their preparations.  

Why is this important? Because it’s a value-add you’re providing to donors during your legacy giving conversations and engagement. You’re not just asking them to include you in their philanthropic wishes. If they haven’t had the hard self-reflections or conversations, you’re getting them thinking about their overall wealth transfer needs and how they affect their loved ones. It’s yet another opportunity to strengthen the personal bond between you and the donor—and build the same with their family.

Strengthen your legacy giving donor bond by: 

• Encouraging them to take a 360-degree view of their short- and long-term finances.  
• Reminding them of the importance of clearly enunciating and memorializing all their wishes, including their charitable legacy giving. 
• Helping them ensure their family is protected and engaged in their planning (and with you). 
• Giving them an opportunity to secure tax benefits that can improve the legacy they leave behind for their loved ones. 

All of this highlights one of your organization’s legacy giving program must-haves: A knowledgeable giving committee. To better serve your donors, you should engage individuals with an understanding of legacy issues and needs, especially if you have board members, volunteers, or officers with financial industry experience, particularly in planning.  

Where and how do you find legacy-motivated donors?

Most often, they’re on your doorstep—existing donors who need to be studied for a number of factors that can qualify them as top legacy giving prospects. One of the best ways to ensure you’re targeting your likeliest donors is by implementing a donor lifecycle management strategy.  

The first two stages—identify and qualify—help you first pinpoint potential donors through data research and analysis, and then refine the universe by studying each donor’s unique characteristics to measure and grade their capacity and willingness to give.  

Definitions of the stages of the donor management lifecycle

• Identify potential donors through data research and analysis. 
• Qualify a donor’s capacity and willingness to give. 
• Cultivate relationships through personalized engagement. 
• Solicit based on the donor’s readiness and identified giving level. 
• Acknowledge the donor’s contribution and impact. 
• Steward the donor relationship to promote retention and increased giving. 

Some key indicators of a donor ready to elevate their engagement to legacy giving include: 

• Level, frequency, and recency of engagement. Active interaction and participation—for instance,  contributing their experience and expertise in leadership roles on your board or committees—can be indicators of a donor’s commitment to your organization’s success. 
• Personal reasons for supporting your organization. A meaningful connection to your cause increases the likelihood of a financial commitment. A prospect with personal motivations for giving can be as valuable, if not more, than someone with considerable assets but no such link.  
• Financial ability to give. Identifying a donor’s sources of wealth and the frequency and amount of past donations to you and other organizations and causes can help you pinpoint a suitable legacy giver. 

When you turn raw data into personal insights, you can tier your donors and focus your efforts on those most likely to become legacy givers. This is particularly critical for ensuring your staff, time, and financial resources are economically allocated and bring back the best donor ROI. Even more, you can use this data when prospecting for donors outside of your current database to ensure you’re targeting high-probability givers who you can move through the donor lifecycle up to legacy giving.

Why do donors make legacy gifts? The Genesio Morlacci story

Legacy gifting is very often personal, emotional, and values based—so much so that some bequeathals come as a surprise to an organization from an unlikely source. 

In 2004, Genesio Morlacci, a former dry cleaning shop owner and part-time janitor, died at 102 and left a $2.3 million endowment to the University of Great Falls. At the time, his gift was expected to generate in the area of $100,000 a year for scholarships. Why? He immigrated from Italy as a young man with a drive to succeed but only a third-grade education. His gift would make it possible for others to get the learning he couldn’t.  

Mr. Morlacci’s story exemplifies both a legacy giving indicator and driver: 

• Following a donor’s philanthropic patterns can help you predict their legacy giving leanings. Friends remembered him donating money to a variety of causes, from a campaign to restore Ellis Island, where he passed through on his immigration journey, to lending money to people in his town for homes and college. 
• An emotional attachment to a cause is a gifting driver. The donation to Ellis Island was a result of Mr. Morlacci’s personal connection to the gateway to his new life in America.  

Like Mr. Morlacci, many legacy donors want more than just their values to last beyond their lives—they want their name and memory to continue. The Morlaccis had no children: So, his endowment helped keep his name and spirit alive in the students who benefited from his generosity and carried on his legacy.  

The power of donor cultivation and stewardship in legacy giving

The story of Genesio Morlacci teaches a powerful lesson: The importance of intertwining a legacy donor’s identity with your organization. While Mr. Morlacci’s gift was given without interaction with the college, he identified with its mission. Similarly, your legacy donor goal is to get them to personally identify with your organization and see that their values align with your purpose. 

Once you’ve sealed that connection, you need to maintain it through an ongoing relationship that ensures they continue to see your mutual value.  

Cultivation: make the donor-legacy connection

You’ll typically be cultivating legacy donors already associated with your organization and whom you’ve identified as being top tier and most qualified, but that doesn’t make the job any easier or require less white-glove attention. In fact, seeking a legacy gift demands more work. It’s an ask that comes with estate planning financial—and, often, family—complexities they have to navigate on your behalf. 

Legacy donor cultivation demands personal engagement for each donor, including an individualized strategy and an assigned advocate or team of advocates that, depending on the size of the expected legacy, may also include your organization’s board, management leaders, and, perhaps, existing legacy donors. 

Engagement can be made through phone calls, emails, in-person meetings, and more. It’s critical you have a thoughtfully designed plan, including all communication touchpoints, that ensures your interactions aren’t too few that the donor doesn’t feel valued or too many that they feel overwhelmed and pressured: You need to find the “just right” balance that keeps them engaged and ready to make a legacy pledge. 

You can also cultivate prospective donors outside your existing list by: 

• Adding information to your website about your legacy giving program. 
• Mentioning legacy giving in your communications—emails, newsletters, etc. 
• Referencing legacy giving during your normal fundraising cycle—annual and special giving campaigns, events, etc. 

Stewardship: a legacy gift is only the beginning

Getting a legacy gift doesn’t mean the work is over—in many ways, it’s just begun. While charitable trusts and annuities are typically irrevocable, a donor can still remove you from their estate plan bequeathal. Perhaps even more importantly, future qualified legacy prospects are just a warm handshake away from your existing donors. So, it’s doubly vital you maintain the relationship you worked hard to develop. 

Successful stewardship revolves around five key principles. 

• Appreciation. Send a prompt, personalized thank you from your organization’s leadership—a phone call and handwritten letter can go a long way. 
• Communication. Ensure regular interactions through their preferred channels—meetings, calls, email, or traditional mail. 
• Education. Keep donors abreast of your organization’s work to remind them how their personal legacy will continue to make a difference. 
• Interaction. Create opportunities for donors to get involved with your organization and get a first-hand look at how you fulfil your mission. 
• Recognition. Establish special recognition programs, ranging from gifts and donor appreciation events to public acknowledgement and naming opportunities. 

Set legacy donors apart with a legacy society

A legacy society is a members-only “circle of honor” for your most important donors. As a member of a legacy society, your donors gain an increased sense of importance to and involvement with your organization, making them feel like insiders to something special that’s there because of them. 

Building blocks of a legacy society

Aside from an appropriately elegant name for your society, you also need to develop membership criteria, determine leadership, decide on benefits, and create a communication plan for legacy donor outreach.  

Legacy society membership benefits can include: 

• Special events, including an annual luncheon and/or gala, exclusive experiences, and more 
• Networking opportunities with fellow legacy donors, business leaders, etc. 
• Recognition in print and interactive media 
• “Circle of honor” name placement on plaques, rooms, art, etc. 
• Personalized notes and gifts from organization leaders 
• Special pins or other items to denote their legacy society status 

Your organization benefits from having another avenue to promote your legacy giving program to prospective donors, including information about the society, photos from events, and more on your website, social media, PR, and communications with your larger donor community.  

Achieve your legacy giving goals with Altrata

Nurturing relationships is vital to moving a donor from their first gift to becoming a legacy donor—but you need to start with prospects and donors with personal attachments or motivations to take their giving to the next level. Altrata can help your organization more efficiently and effectively aim its human and financial resources at the likeliest candidates. Your team can then spend its time doing the heaviest legacy lifting: donor engagement. That’s where you prove your mission matters and make lasting giving connections. 

Altrata’s powerful data solutions help you uncover and screen donors, and then find data-driven links between them and their deeply personal drivers. You’ll not only pinpoint the right donors but the best ways to communicate with and cultivate them—and the clearest pathways to a legacy giving commitment.  

The Altrata legacy giving difference: 

• Relationship and board mapping: Reveals warm introduction paths to potential legacy donors through shared boards, alumni networks, or executive connections  
• Verified HNW/UHNW profiles: Helps identify donors with capacity for transformational legacy gifts 
• Global intelligence: Enables cultivation of international and cross-border legacy prospects 
• Human-verified data accuracy: Provides confidence when engaging high-capacity legacy prospects 
• CRM integrations: Embeds donor intelligence into legacy giving management workflows 

Discover how Altrata can help you build lasting donor legacies. Request a personalized demo with our team today.  

Frequently Asked Questions

Are legacy and planned giving the same?

Legacy giving is a kind of planned giving, not planned giving itself. Planned giving is a structured program of donations that can occur both during and after a donor’s lifetime. Legacy giving strictly focuses on how an individual can continue their charitable work after their death. 

What are the benefits of establishing a legacy giving program?

In an increasingly challenging environment of donor discovery and retention, legacy giving can provide a reliable source of operational and fundraising income. Once in motion, it requires ongoing stewardship and relationship management—but alleviates some of the stress on your team’s donor pipeline building efforts. The regular engagement required to secure a legacy gift can also help you deepen donor—and create multi-generational – relationships. 

Are there different kinds of legacy giving?

Yes, there are a variety of financial tools you and donors can use to create a lasting legacy commitment. You can receive a one-time bequest of cash, investments, or property; become a beneficiary of a retirement account or a grant from a donor-advised fund (DAF); create one of several kinds of charitable annuities and trusts; or build an endowment that can become a self-sustaining source of funding. 

Why do donors decide to make legacy gifts?

It isn’t an overstatement to say legacy giving most often comes from the heart. Including an organization or cause in one’s financial planning beyond their passing is typically personal, emotional, and values based. A direct or inspirational/aspirational connection can lead to a donor’s decision, as well as a desire to ensure they are remembered for their charitable works long after they’re gone. 

How do you find likely legacy donors?

Look for indicators that can show a donor is ready to make the step up to legacy giving including: level, frequency, and recency of their engagement with you; personal reasons for supporting your organization; and financial ability to give. To find these indicators—as well as the donors themselves—you should implement a donor lifecycle management strategy.  You’ll be better positioned to identify and qualify your top donors, and ensure your time, staff, and finances are focused on candidates with the greatest propensity for legacy giving. 

Is the job done once you’ve secured a legacy donor?

No, it’s only begun. You want to ensure a donor remains engaged and continues to see your organization as worthy of their ultimate show of commitment. But it goes farther than the donor: They can be the gateway to other prospects who could someday become legacy givers themselves. You want to build a stewardship strategy with ongoing opportunities to thank them for and recognize their generosity, as well as ways to interact with your organization’s staff and leadership—not to mention fellow legacy donors. Creating a legacy society—a members-only honorific association—is an ideal way to make donors feel important, valued, and appreciated.