How to discover the donors who wish to have an impact on your organization as part of their legacy.
Identification of Planned Giving Prospects
Prospective planned gift donors may be identified in one of several ways, including:
- Donor self-identification
- Prospect research leads
- Development officer referrals
- Professional advisor referrals
- Personal and professional networks
To facilitate donor self-identification, make it as easy as possible for donors to contact you for questions, information, or to let you know about their plans. Simple ways to make it easier for donors include:
- Your contact info and photo on your station’s planned giving webpage
- Check-boxes on return pieces and mailers:
- “I have included [STATION] in my will or other estate plan.”
- “I am interested in information about ways to make a gift to [STATION] in my will or estate plan.”
- Having forms available both in hard copy and online
Common characteristics of planned gift donors include:
-
Members/annual gift donors, particularly those with many years of giving; recent giving; and above-average donations to your station
-
Board members
-
Volunteers
-
Donors with no children
-
Single/unmarried donors
-
Married donors with financially secure children
-
Financially comfortable donors and those with well-funded retirement accounts
-
Donors who are older in age
While the list above identifies qualities that often indicate a likelihood to consider or make a planned gift, it is not uncommon to see planned gifts from people who:
-
Have never given to your station during life (i.e., are not current or former members)
-
Are not in your database
-
Have children
-
Come from all levels of income and wealth
-
Are of any adult age—often younger than expected—when the gift is first established
This suggests and reinforces the importance of broad marketing of planned giving, not just to the most obvious candidates.
Prospect research is valuable with respect to planned giving, especially in creating lists for marketing purposes. At some stations, you may have a dedicated in-house research team with whom you can partner. In some places, it may be a single database manager or IT staff who assists you with queries and pulling lists. At some small stations, that may be you!
Basic Prospect Research for Planned Giving:
- Start with your most loyal donors, based on years of giving
- Prioritize the list based on known affinity, engagement, and existing relationships
- If possible, analyze your database using some predictive modeling
- Help is available from third-party vendors with experience in planned gift prospect research
For mailings, it is helpful to know the size of the list to whom you can afford to mail. If you can only afford to mail to 500 individuals, you should strive to find the 500 most qualified prospects.
Once the size of your mailing list is determined, look for your most loyal donors. Loyalty can be assessed by balancing longevity and consistency. An approach to segmenting your donor records for bequest marketing recommended by planned giving marketing expert Larry Stelter years ago still works well. Run a query to discover:
- Donors age 55 and older who have made two gifts ever (too many records?)
- Donors age 65 and older who have made 3 gifts in the last five years (too many records?)
- Donor age 65 and older who have made 4 gifts in the last 7 years (too many records?)
- Donor age 65 and older who have made 5 gifts in the last 8 years (still too many records?)
Need to further refine this list? Start the query over using a higher age – 70 for example – or a larger number of years of giving. Many stations have a significant number of donors who have been giving for 20, 30, or even 40 years or more. This systematic process should yield a highly qualified mailing list. Planned gifts are age specific; therefore, knowing the ages of your constituents will help achieve greater effectiveness and efficiency with your marketing efforts. If you don’t know the ages of your donors, to some extent years of giving can be used as a proxy. Email is an inexpensive, valuable tool for reaching donors, and especially important given that the cost of printed mail is prohibitive to send to all potential planned gift donors.
Qualification of Planned Giving Prospects Giving:
After you have identified your best planned gift prospects, the next step is qualification. Qualification is a discovery process. The purpose of qualification is to discover prospective donors’ interests, and whether they are likely planned (and/or major) gift prospects. Discovery is done through personal interaction, including:
- Personal visits
- Phone calls or video meetings
- Individual personal email correspondence
- Mailed letters, cards, and notes
Things to look for and evaluate in qualification:
- Level of enthusiasm for your station
- Interests aligned with your mission
- Frequent engagement
- Expressed openness to considering a planned gift
- Wealth helps, but is not determinative
- Stated or implied family and philanthropic priorities
Once you have had enough interactions with a prospective donor, you will exercise judgment about whether to continue conversations toward a planned gift, or to remove them from immediate consideration.
See more from the Planned Giving Toolkit

Planned Giving Types and Techniques
Understand all the ways a donor can choose to make a planned gift to your organization.

Making the Case to Leadership for Planned Giving
Learn how to gain buy-in from leadership, plan staffing, and measure the success of your program.

Planned Giving Marketing Samples and Templates
Sample scripts and audio to market your planned giving program.

Marketing Your Planned Giving Program
Find out the best frequency and timing for your planned giving marketing efforts.