Your planned giving prospects are not just online — they are experienced digital users. They compare, research, and make decisions on their phones and tablets long before they talk to you. Your prospects and donors now expect a clear, modern, mobile-friendly planned giving website. If visitors cannot quickly understand their options and how to respond, your organization simply does not exist in their consideration set.
The Great Wealth Transfer Is Here
Right now, trillions of dollars are moving between generations in the largest wealth transfer in history. A donor-friendly planned giving website is one of the few tools that works for you 24/7 — educating prospects, positioning your mission, and capturing future bequests. If your planned giving website is outdated, slow, or buried within your main site, you are leaving legacy gifts on the table.
The golden rule for online engagement remains: “Don’t make me think.” Your planned giving website must be instantly clear, easy to skim, and fast on mobile. Confuse visitors and you lose them — usually to a nonprofit with a cleaner digital experience.
Make Your Planned Giving Website Visual and Scannable
Most users do not process dense text. They respond to visual, structured information. A high-performing planned giving website uses illustrations, short videos, and clear callouts to explain complex concepts in seconds. Paragraphs should be short, headings descriptive, and spacing generous.
Write for the web — not for print. Break detailed gift descriptions into clean, clickable sections instead of long blocks of text. This improves user experience and search visibility for key phrases such as “planned giving website,” “legacy giving,” “charitable bequest,” and “estate planning gifts.”
Add Interactive Planned Giving Tools
Interactive tools transform a static planned giving website into an engagement platform. When prospects experiment with numbers, they begin imagining how a gift could work for them. Tools like
planned giving calculators keep visitors on your site longer and increase qualified inquiries.
Major consumer brands rely on calculators, quizzes, and interactive features for a reason: engagement builds confidence. The same applies to planned giving. When donors can run scenarios privately, at their own pace, they are far more likely to reach out.
Tell Donor Stories, Not Just Technical Details
A planned giving website overloaded with tax language and technical copy drives prospects away.
Donor stories do the opposite. They show why real people chose to make a legacy gift — not just how the mechanics work.
One of our clients features a photo of three donors — two women and a man holding a football. Clicking through reveals them cheerleading at a 1949 football game and explains how that shared experience led to a bequest decades later. This kind of concrete, memorable storytelling elevates your planned giving website beyond generic content.
To strengthen your own donor stories, here are four ways to maximize a donor story, including a practical questionnaire you can use.
Lead With Mission, Then Show the Path
Your mission should be unmistakable from the very first screen of your planned giving website. Donors must instantly understand your impact — and how a legacy gift extends that impact for generations.
Once the mission is clear, show how simple it is to include your organization in a will, trust, or beneficiary designation. Replace jargon with plain language. Replace generic copy with clear choices and simple next steps. The goal is to reduce friction at every click.
Make Contact Effortless on Your Planned Giving Website
Many planned giving websites bury contact information, hide it behind forms, or offer no direct contact at all. That is a reliable way to lose motivated prospects. Anyone ready to call today should be able to do so without searching.
Display direct contact information for your planned giving office in multiple places throughout the site. Not everyone wants to fill out a form. Do not signal, “Do not call us — we will call you.” A strong planned giving website invites conversation instead of creating barriers.
Put a Human Face on Your Planned Giving Program
Planned giving is fundamentally a trust-based decision. Donors want to know who they will be speaking with. Add your photo and a concise bio to your planned giving website so prospects can see the real person behind the title.
If you operate a small development shop, personality becomes a strategic advantage. Some organizations even feature a playful “team member” like Chloe the Yorkie as an administrative assistant — complete with her own phone number and email. Small touches like these make your planned giving website approachable and memorable.
Creative elements also elevate pages that typically frustrate users. For example, featuring Chloe on your
404 error page turns a dead end into a positive brand moment.
Think Mobile-First and Donor-First
In 2025, most visitors will see your planned giving website on a phone. Navigation, font size, calculators, and forms must work perfectly on a small screen. If a donor has to pinch, zoom, or guess where to tap, they will leave — often permanently.
A donor-first, mobile-first planned giving website respects attention, anticipates questions, provides simple answers, and offers a direct way to reach a real person when the donor is ready.
There Is More to Building a High-Performing Planned Giving Website
The ideas above are only the foundation. Building an effective planned giving website that consistently generates qualified leads requires strategy, strong messaging, optimized navigation, and the right tools.
Most planned giving websites were built for donors a decade ago. Today’s donors expect the clarity and ease they experience on top consumer sites. If your planned giving website is not doing the heavy lifting — educating, engaging, and prompting response — your best prospects will move quietly to organizations that are better prepared.
Contact us and we will show you how to develop a powerful planned giving web presence that drives traffic to your website and to your phone, inbox, and actual mailbox. Those three channels still produce the most serious planned giving leads, yet many organizations continue to overlook them.
We handle the heavy lifting so you can focus on what you do best — raising money and deepening donor relationships.
Marketing Planned Giving to Advisors
In a perfect world, all of your benefactors who receive your planned giving mailing will immediately decide it’s a good idea, call their advisor for the go ahead, and then make your institution a gift that changes not only the trajectory of your long-term revenue goals, but your career as well.
Is Your Planned Giving Website Ready for Today’s Donors?
Your donors and prospects are online researching – And their numbers are growing. If you don’t have a compelling web presence, you simply do not exist. Here’s why your planned giving website needs to be kept up to date, and how to do it easily!
Asking Your Prospects for Their Email Addresses
That popup demanding contact info for a generic eBrochure? It’s lazy. Your visitors know it. They’ll hand over their junk email and never think of you again. Want real engagement? Offer real value—exclusive content, branded swag, early access. No value, no ask. Simple. Respect the exchange or lose the donor.
