50+ Planned Giving Statistics, Trends & Benchmarks to Know
According to recent Giving USA data, charitable bequest giving reached $62.19 billion in 2025. That’s a significant portion of the fundraising pie, yet it continues to be a piece that many organizations and philanthropists overlook.
To capitalize on the ongoing Great Wealth Transfer, nonprofit leadership must understand donor demographic matrices, retention metrics, and campaign completion benchmarks to secure long-term endowment growth.
Feel like you’re not knowledgeable enough to tackle planned giving concepts like these? You’re not alone; 31% of nonprofits engage professional advisors (such as estate and financial planning experts) to support their planned giving efforts, with an average of four advisors per organization.
Let’s dive in to explore even more stats!
Statistics on the Current State of Planned and Legacy Giving
- The average legacy gift is currently valued at $122,540.
- According to a study by CAF America, legacy donors say they plan to leave a portion of their estates to charity because…
- 35% say they value the act of giving and being generous
- 21% say they believe in the specific cause
- 19% say they have a personal connection to the cause
- 15% say it’s due to general societal benefit
- 9% say “others need their donation more”
- 9% simply feel they should give back
- 3% cite a religious calling
- 3% want to leave a tangible legacy
- 3% say they have no descendants
- 7-9% of all U.S. charitable donations come from legacy gifts.
- Legacy gifts were distributed unevenly across sectors, with Education, Environmental, and Animal Welfare seeing 3.6x the average.
- Bequests make up over 90% of all planned gifts.
- Planned giving offers the highest ROI of all fundraising methods.
- 29% of respondents say they want their legacy gift to address health or medical issues, which is the most common response by far.
- Nonprofits received more funding from known, documented legacy gifts ($82 million) than unknown legacy gifts ($55.2 million).
- Meanwhile, $6.1 million came from expected but not formally documented legacy gifts.
- The ratio of endowment size to legacy gifts is just under 20:1 across all subsectors.
Statistics on the Growth of Planned and Legacy Giving
- Giving to charitable bequests saw a 19.7% increase year-over-year.
- In other words, it outpaced all other sources of charitable growth. In the same time period, foundation giving increased by 5.7%, individual giving increased by 4.1%,and corporate giving increased by 3.1%.
- Bequests added more than $10 billion in revenue compared to 2024.
- 1 in 3 donors desires membership in a giving society, making legacy giving societies a powerful incentive to grow planned giving pipelines.
- Luckily, studies indicate that 75% of survey respondents have established, are establishing, or are considering establishing a legacy donor recognition society.
- The average legacy gift per donor in a campaign is just over $680,000, significantly higher than the average legacy gift overall.
- This indicates that campaigns can help drive larger legacy commitments.
Statistics on the Existing Planned and Legacy Giving Gap
- Only .12% of annual and .2% of campaign donors engage in legacy giving.
- Roughly 5–6% of Americans have named a charity in their will, yet 1 in 3 say they would consider it if asked.
- An organization’s planned giving prospect pool may be up to 5x larger than its capital pool.
- However, these donors are still often overlooked!
- 68% of Americans currently lack a valid will or estate plan.
- Only 37% of people 30 and older know what “planned giving” means.
- And that shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering the majority of nonprofits lack even a basic planned giving program.
- Roughly half of nonprofits do not track donors’ ages or birthdates.
- Approximately $484.1 billion is anticipated toward legacy giving but is not yet properly documented as such.
- Among affluent adults who don’t plan to make a legacy gift, 11% (the second most cited answer) feel they don’t have enough to give.
- Nonprofits employing at least one legacy giving staff member see a 293% increase in legacy revenue over nonprofits that do not.
- 52% of nonprofits have not updated their gift acceptance policies in the last five years.
- Meanwhile, only 41% have updated their gift acceptance policies recently and included guidance for bequests and other deferred gifts.
Statistics on the Future of Planned and Legacy Giving
- Estimates suggest $84 trillion will transfer from older generations to their heirs over the next two decades.
- The average time for a planned gift to mature is 7 to 10 years.
- 56% of affluent U.S. adults say they plan to leave a part of their estate to charity.
- More than 9.6 million affluent U.S. adults have not yet documented their legacy-giving plans.
- Monetary gifts are the most common form of legacy giving, with 74% of anticipated legacy donors planning to gift money.
- Meanwhile, 38% of anticipated legacy donors plan to gift assets to charities they care about, while 37% plan to gift via a charitable trust.
- Anticipated legacy donors report that 20% to 30% of their assets will go to charity.
- Nearly 50% of donors first learned about legacy giving from a nonprofit.
Demographics Statistics: The Ideal Legacy Giving Donor
- PlannedGiving.com’s “planned giving facts” states that single and widowed older women are among the best planned giving prospects.
- Modest-dollar donors are the most likely and overlooked prospects for legacy gifts.
- High net worth (HNW) and ultrahigh net worth (UHNW) donors of color make more planned gifts than their white counterparts.
- 45% of bequests are created by individuals aged 55 or younger, and 15% are by those younger than 45.
The Relationship Between Planned and Annual Giving
- Legacy donors are more likely to contribute a major gift while alive, too.
- After adding a charity to their estate plan, reports indicate that annual giving increases by more than 77%.
- And these findings hold true 8+ years later!
- It takes between $0.01 and $.57 to raise a legacy gift dollar. That’s significantly less than the cost to raise a major or cash gift.
- Planned gifts represent an estimated 30% of campaign totals.
- While only 1/10 of 1% of donors were legacy gift donors, revenue from these gifts represented 16.7% of total fundraising.
- Planned contributions average between 40 and 300x the size of a donor’s largest annual gift.
- Fundraisers who dabble in planned giving earn 50% to 100% more than those who do not.
Summary and Actionable Next Steps
Empirical data confirms that planned giving remains an essential driver of long-term institutional stability and endowment growth. By understanding average bequest sizes, donor demographic matrices, and campaign conversion benchmarks, nonprofit leaders can structure effective, data-driven legacy programs.
To capitalize on these statistical trends and capture available wealth transfer opportunities, executive teams should complete the following initial actions:
- Audit your donor database to identify all constituents with 5 or more consecutive years of giving history to establish your primary legacy outreach list.
- Establish baseline tracking metrics for legacy prospect inquiries, guide downloads, and documented bequest notifications.
- Set formal Legacy Society expansion goals and integrate bequest request checkboxes across all standard annual appeal reply cards.
- Train major gift officers to present blended gift proposals that combine immediate cash support with deferred estate commitments.
- Maintain a continuous multi-channel marketing schedule to ensure consistent visibility among donors updating their estate documents.
Leveraging these statistical insights allows your organization to build an executive-level planned giving framework that expands donor relationships, maximizes bequest yield, and secures sustainable financial resilience for years to come.
For more powerful fundraising data, we recommend our online giving statistics and corporate philanthropy research!