New to planned giving? We can’t make you an expert in the next four minutes, but these facts will get you halfway there in no time at all.
- In the next two decades, Baby Boomers will leave behind $30 trillion in assets. This is the largest wealth transfer in human history and may be the biggest opportunity for philanthropy in the history of the world.
- Planned giving generated $37 billion for nonprofits last year — an amount expected to double in the next decade based on changing demographics.
- Nonprofits with a planned giving strategy can generate up to one-third of their revenue through planned giving.
- The most common type of planned gifts are “bequests”, which are gifts made through a will or trust. More than 85% of planned gifts are bequests. Other types of planned gifts include IRA designations, life insurance gifts, charitable lead trusts, and more.
- One of the biggest barriers to more planned giving for nonprofits is that many people don’t have any estate planning at all. Fewer than 50% of baby boomers have a will, and less than 40% of parents have one. (This isn’t good for a whole host of reasons. One of the most important is being clear how children should be cared for if they suffer a parental bereavement.)
- The top reason people haven’t made a will is simply, “I haven’t gotten around to it.” This is a huge opportunity to help your supporters understand why creating a will is important and how they can use it to generously support the causes they care about, like yours.
- Making it easy to make a will and asking for a gift in the right way can increase your planned giving by 600%!
- People who plan to leave bequests increase their annual giving by an average of 75% in subsequent years.
- All of your supporters have the potential to make planned gifts, but research shows that a few attributes make someone more likely to support your organization in their estate: not having children, and having a long history of giving to you. But, organizations also frequently get gifts from people who have never donated before so it’s important to cast a broad net.
- Bequests are up to 1,000 times larger than a donor’s typical donation. The average bequest on FreeWill is $78,000, often from middle-class donors.