How Nonprofits Can Use Free Estate Planning Tools to Build Donor Trust and Increase Legacy Gifts

How Nonprofits Can Use Free Estate Planning Tools to Build Donor Trust and Increase Legacy Gifts

Nonprofits grow legacy giving by offering donor-facing estate planning tools that are free, legally vetted, and easy to use — because donors who create a will on such a platform are five times more likely to include a charitable bequest, and those bequests are more than twice the national average in size. Rather than chasing wealthy prospects, the better move is to lower the barrier so loyal supporters can simply say yes.

The core insight is simple: most teams don't need a bigger donor base to start seeing planned gifts — they need a simpler way for donors to say yes. When you make estate planning free for your supporters, they get real value (a will or trust at no cost), and your organization gets something equally valuable: a real-time signal when a gift is committed, plus the ability to steward that donor well.

This article lays out a five-step framework — the EASE model — that any nonprofit can use to build donor trust, increase charitable bequests, and turn free estate planning tools into a durable legacy giving program. You'll get implementation steps, a worksheet, and the common mistakes that quietly kill momentum.

What Is the EASE Framework for Nonprofit Legacy Giving?

EASE is a four-part methodology: Educate donors on why estate planning matters, Activate them with a free tool, Steward the relationship after they commit, and Evaluate the pipeline so you can improve. The framework works because it replaces "ask a rich person for money" with "help a loyal donor do something they already need to do." That shift is the whole game in modern planned giving.

EASE is not the same as a traditional planned giving program. Traditional programs often focus on wealth screening — identifying the richest donors and pursuing them one by one. EASE inverts that: it focuses on donor loyalty and ease of execution, which is where nonprofits actually secure new planned gifts today. The result is a pipeline that grows from the middle of your donor file outward, not just from the top.

Why This Framework Works

Three forces line up behind EASE.

First, the market is wide open. Two-thirds of Americans do not have an estate plan. That's not a niche — it's the majority of your donor base. Offering a free service that nudges charitable giving is one of the best ways to help donors care for the people and causes they love.

Second, the friction is real. Donors who intend to leave a bequest often never get around to it because the process is confusing or expensive. A co-branded landing page that walks them through creating a free, legal will removes that friction entirely.

Third, the trust dividend compounds. When you give donors a free, legally vetted estate planning tool — accessible in all 50 states and DC — you're not asking for anything in that moment. You're providing a service. Donors remember who helped them protect their family.

The trust dividend is the least measurable and most powerful part of this. A donor who trusts you enough to name you in their will has just made the deepest possible statement of confidence. That's the foundation of donor trust legacy giving, and it's worth protecting.

The EASE Framework Steps

Step 1: Educate Donors on Why Estate Planning Matters

Education is not a sales pitch. It's a service. Your job is to help donors understand that a will protects their family, that it takes minutes on a good platform, and that it can include the causes they care about.

Start with your existing communications: newsletters, email sequences, event scripts. Legacy giving brochures remain a common marketing tool, especially for older donors who prefer physical materials. Pair those with digital content that links to free estate planning tools.

The key move is to make charitable bequests feel normal and achievable — not like a rarefied act reserved for the wealthy. Most donors who leave a bequest are not billionaires; they're people who care deeply and want their values to outlast them.

What to say (and what not to):

• Say: "Create your free will in 20 minutes and protect the people you love."
• Say: "You can include any cause you care about — no pressure, no obligation."
• Don't say: "Please remember us in your will." That framing makes it about you, not the donor.

A practical way to get this right is to treat estate planning education as content marketing, not fundraising. Write about guardianship, healthcare directives, and how trusts work. Answer questions people are actually asking. When you become the resource, the ask becomes natural.

Step 2: Activate Donors With a Free Estate Planning Tool

This is where EASE earns its name. Your calls to action should focus on sending prospective donors to your FreeWill products.

Within a planned giving suite, you get a co-branded landing page that directs donors to create a free, legal will. The tool walks them through the steps of creating a will, and during that process they often choose to leave a bequest to your organization. Crucially, this also gives your nonprofit the data it needs to steward the donor and manage your program.

And yes — the estate planning tools hosted on your co-branded site are completely free for your donors to use. Nonprofits invest in the platform to access campaign management, reporting, and strategic services, which allows the will-making and trust-building tools to be provided to supporters at zero cost.

A dedicated planned giving microsite serves as the digital home for your program. It's where donors land, learn, and click through to the free tool. You can also use a form or other free, accessible tool that prompts donors to make an estate plan or share information about their gifts.

One important distinction: you can simply give donors instructions and sample language to add to their wills, but this hands-off approach makes it difficult to track gifts over time. You might not even be notified of new gifts or be able to thank donors. Provide those instructions, yes — but they shouldn't be the main point of emphasis.

Step 3: Steward Donors Through Every Touchpoint

Stewardship is where trust is either built or broken. Real-time notifications when a donor commits are the operational backbone of good stewardship. They let you say thank you fast, which matters enormously in planned giving.

Build a simple stewardship sequence:

1. Within 48 hours of a commitment: Send a personal thank-you. Reference the commitment specifically.
2. Within two weeks: Follow up with a phone call or a handwritten note. Confirm the gift details and answer questions.
3. Within 90 days: Invite the donor to a legacy society event or send a recognition piece.
4. Annually: Check in. Update them on the impact of their future gift's area of interest.

A legacy society is a structured way to recognize and steward these donors over the long term. Many organizations use dedicated planned giving microsites to promote and facilitate legacy gifts today. Your stewarding infrastructure should also include a CRM or database that can track individual engagement and donation data and has moves management capabilities. Without that, you're guessing.

Stewardship is also where nonprofits commonly stumble. When a donor self-identifies a bequest through a free tool, they may not tell you directly — you might receive a notification from the platform instead [S2, S3]. Treat that notification as an invitation to open a warm, human conversation. Never let it become a purely transactional data entry.

For a deeper dive on recognizing and stewarding these donors, see Building a Legacy Society: How Nonprofits Can Recognize and Steward Planned Giving Donors.

Step 4: Evaluate and Improve the Pipeline

Evaluation is the discipline that separates a program from a campaign. At minimum, track four things:

Remember the benchmark: estate plans made on a supported platform are five times more likely to include bequests, and those gifts are more than twice as large as the national average. Use those figures as your north star when you evaluate whether your program is working.

Also track the less obvious signals — microsite traffic, brochure requests, email clicks on estate planning content, and one-on-one conversations logged in your CRM. These are the leading indicators of future bequests. By the time a bequest shows up in a notification, the work is already done.

Evaluation is not a one-time audit. It's a quarterly habit. Review your numbers, adjust your messaging, and reinvest in what's working.

How Do You Apply the EASE Framework In Practice?

The first 90 days matter most. Here's how to run them.

Days 1–30: Build the foundation. Set up your co-branded landing page. Draft your microsite content. Write the first three email templates (intro, reminder, thank-you). Identify your legacy society structure and recognition criteria. This is also the right time to draft or review a charitable gift acceptance policy, because you'll want clear language for what gifts you can accept and how.

Days 31–60: Launch to a warm audience. Start with your most loyal donors — the ones who've given for years, volunteered, or attended events. Send a personal email from a real staff member. Link directly to the free tool. Offer to answer questions.

Days 61–90: Steward and iterate. Thank every responder personally. Log each conversation in your CRM. Review completion numbers. Adjust language that isn't resonating. Then expand to a broader segment.

A practical worksheet for each donor segment:

• Segment name: ____________
• Relationship strength (1–5): ____________
• Likely message theme: ____________
• Channel (email/brochure/event): ____________
• Follow-up owner: ____________
• Target date: ____________

This works best when the same person owns the follow-up every time. Hand-offs between fundraising, marketing, and stewardship are where trust leaks. One exception: if your donor file is very small, a single staff member can handle all four EASE steps — but at scale, the EASE roles need to be separate.

What Does a Successful EASE Program Look Like?

Imagine a mid-sized nonprofit with 5,000 active donors. Most are loyal but modest givers. The organization has never had a formal planned giving program.

In month one, they launch a co-branded landing page with a free will-making tool. They write three educational blog posts about estate planning. In month two, they email a segment of 800 long-time donors. Over 12 weeks, 60 donors complete a free estate plan through the tool [S1, S2]. Twelve of those donors commit a charitable bequest.

Using the benchmark that plans on a supported platform are five times more likely to include bequests, that conversion rate is consistent with what a well-run program can expect. Six months in, the organization launches a legacy society to recognize those twelve donors and begins quarterly stewardship outreach. Year two sees 25 more commitments. The pipeline is now self-sustaining.

That example is hypothetical, but the mechanics come directly from documented nonprofit practice. For a closer look at how advisors can plug into the same model, see How Advisors Can Use Free Estate Planning Tools to Boost Client Charitable Giving by 40%: A Case Study. Advisors are often the people donors call first — and bringing them into the EASE conversation can accelerate everything.

What Mistakes Should Nonprofits Avoid With Free Estate Planning Tools?

Mistake 1: Making the bequest the headline. Donors see through it instantly. Lead with the free service — the will, the trust, the peace of mind. The charitable option comes later in the process, naturally.

Mistake 2: Treating free tools as a one-time campaign. EASE is a cycle, not a launch. Evaluate quarterly, refresh your education content, and keep stewarding.

Mistake 3: Skipping the CRM. A CRM or database that can track individual engagement and donation data and has moves management capabilities is a foundational requirement, not a nice-to-have. Without it, you can't steward at scale.

Mistake 4: Relying on sample will language alone. Giving donors instructions is helpful, but as a primary strategy it makes gifts untrackable and thank-yous impossible.

Mistake 5: Letting the platform do all the work. Technology removes friction. It doesn't replace relationships. The notification is the start of the relationship, not the end of it.

Mistake 6: Ignoring data privacy. Donors trust you with deeply personal information when they create an estate plan. Data privacy isn't a feature — it's a promise. Protect it accordingly.

Mistake 7: Skipping gift acceptance guidance. Before you promote bequests, know what you can accept. A clear gift acceptance policy protects both your organization and your donors.

Templates and Tools for Building Your Program

You don't need to build everything from scratch. Here's what a starter kit looks like.

Each asset has one job. The microsite educates and routes donors. The landing page converts. The brochure reaches donors who prefer paper. The CRM remembers. The policy protects. The legacy society honors.

As you build, resist the urge to add complexity. Every extra step you ask a donor to take costs you conversions. The whole point of free estate planning tools is that the donor's path is short.

Conclusion: Trust First, Gifts Second

The EASE framework works because it puts donor service before donor solicitation. Educate donors about estate planning, activate them with a free tool, steward every commitment with speed and warmth, and evaluate your pipeline so you can improve. When you do those four things consistently, bequests follow.

The evidence is clear that this approach outperforms wealth-chasing: estate plans made on a supported platform are five times more likely to include bequests, and those gifts are more than twice the national average. And with two-thirds of Americans lacking an estate plan, the opportunity isn't in a few wealthy prospects — it's across your entire donor file.

Start with one step this quarter. Pick your warmest segment, write one honest email, and send them to a free tool. Thank everyone who responds. Build the rest from there.