Most nonprofits treat legacy donors as if they are all the same.
That is a mistake.
Small estate gifts and big estate gifts are not the same thing. They do not come from the same kinds of donors. They are not driven by the same motives. And they should not lead to the same fundraising strategy.
That is a key lesson from a new study of mine with Dr. Claire Routley just out this week. Open access link is here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/nvsm.70052
In planned giving, nonprofits often celebrate growth in the number of legacy society members. But that can hide the real story.
A 30-year-old who adds a charity as a beneficiary on a new retirement account counts as one legacy donor.
An 85-year-old ultra-high-net-worth donor who signs a will leaving half of their estate to a named endowment also counts as one legacy donor.
Both count as one. But they are not equal in fundraising importance.
In most fundraising, this kind of counting would seem silly. In estate giving, it is especially misleading. Nonprofits don’t get big estate dollars by getting a lot of estate gifts. They get big estate dollars by getting a handful of the largest ones.
You can probably see this in your own organization’s records. Would you trade your 10 largest estate gifts for all of the rest? Probably not.
National data show the same pattern.
In two IRS studies, estates leaving more than 90% to charity made up only about 10% of charitable estates. But those estates accounted for most of the charitable estate dollars.
These big gifts (as a share of the estate) were not typical.
But they drove the dollars.
That’s why it’s so important to understand what motivates large estate gifts.
Identifying Key Motivations for Large Estate Gifts
Our recent study looked at money attitudes. These attitudes clustered into different dimensions.
One was a financial-planning orientation. These are people who budget, save, plan ahead, and track money carefully. They agreed with statements such as “I do financial planning for the future” and “I keep track of my money.”
Those donors were more likely to say they would include charity in a new will.
That makes sense. They plan. They think ahead. They are prepared to act.
To a lesser extent, “Bargain seekers” also planned to leave a gift. These are people who love bargains and sales. This connection might reflect the discount from the tax benefits of such gifts.
But neither of those attitudes predicted who was likely to leave a large SHARE of their estate to charity.
Something else did.
The Primary Predictor: ‘Money-as-Status’
The strongest predictor of a larger charitable share was a “money-as-status” attitude. These were people who agreed with statements like:
“In all honesty, I own nice things in order to impress others.”
“I behave as if money were the ultimate symbol of success.”
“People I know tell me that I place too much emphasis on the amount of money a person has as a sign of his/her success.”
“Although I should judge the success of people by their deeds, I am more influenced by the amount of money they have.”
“I seem to find that I show more respect to people with more money than I have.”
The big gift estate donors (as a share of the estate) tended to have these “money-as-status” financial attitudes.
Real-World Evidence: How Status Motivates Giving Structures
That may sound uncomfortable. But it fits what we see in the real world.
For estates above $5 million (back when IRS data captured these), 72% to 78% of charitable dollars went to private family foundations.
That’s not a typo. That’s where the dollars actually went.
And it fits the research finding.
The private family foundation is the ultimate money-as-status instrument.
It’s named for the founder (or the founder’s family). It’s legally required to follow the founder’s intentions. It’s designed to continue their name and legacy forever.
What about the smaller share of estate gifts (22% to 28%) that actually went to public charities? Most of them went to foundation-like entities such as endowments, professorships, scholarships, and similar funds. These replicate the money-as-status features of the private family foundation.
Again, the same pattern appears. Identity. Recognition. Permanence. Legacy.
We see this in lifetime giving too.
A CASE study examined the largest gifts made to every level of college or university, from community colleges to national research univerisites. Nearly 3/4 of these big gifts conferred naming rights for the donor. And about 2/3 of the gifts funded endowments that were intended to live forever. Only 14% included even a single dollar for unrestricted current use.
So the pattern is not limited to estates.
Implications for Fundraising Strategy
Big gifts look different because big donors often want different things.
That matters for fundraising.
It is easy to say, “Most donors do not care about naming, permanence, status, or legacy.” And that might even be true. But the money doesn’t come from most donors. It comes from just a few.
The most recent data pooled from various fundraising software platforms show that the largest 0.4% of donors give the majority of charitable dollars. (Fundraising Effectiveness Project https://fepreports.org/)
If the largest donors are more likely to be motivated by “Money-as-status” attitudes, it helps to design donor products and donor experiences that match these attitudes.
It might be more comfortable to ignore these differences. Or to dismiss them. Or even to attack them.
Too often, organizations drift into magical thinking. They assume that if they just tell their story better, large gifts will come.
Usually, they will not.
If you want larger gifts, it helps to offer structures that fit the motives of larger-gift donors. Named funds. Endowments. Visible legacy. Durable impact. Identity-linked giving opportunities.
Big gifts are not random. They are not just bigger versions of ordinary gifts. They follow patterns.
If you want big gifts, it helps to know what they look like. It helps to know who makes them. It helps to know what motivates them.
For more on this topic, see The Storytelling Fundraiser, Ch. 9: The psychology of the massive donation: Foundations, funds, trusts, and endowments. Get the Fundraising Myth & Science series, including The Storytelling Fundraiser, for free: https://imarketsmart.com/donor-story-ebooks/
A Note on Defining ‘Big’ Gifts
One more note: in this study, “big” means big relative to the donor’s resources. That is often the right way to think about major gifts more generally. A major gift is not just a large dollar amount. It is a large commitment relative to capacity. In other words, these are not quick, pocket-change decisions. They’re major life investment gifts. So, we can’t learn about big gift decision-making when a donor with $600,000 in the bank gives $50. Nor can we learn about it when MacKenzie Scott generates massive publicity with a $3 million dollar unrestricted gift. Why not? Because those are the same size gifts relative to net worth. They’re both “pocket change” gifts of 0.008% of net worth.
References:
Giacomini, C., Trumble, D., Koranteng, A., & King, J. (2022). CASE Study of Principal Gifts to US Colleges & Universities. Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
James, R. N., III. (2020). American charitable bequest transfers across the centuries: Empirical findings and implications for policy and practice. Estate Planning & Community Property Law Journal, 12, 235-285.
James, R. N., & Routley, C. (2026). Money attitudes driving charitable bequest intentions: Understanding legacy-gift segments to inform nonprofit communication strategy. Journal of Philanthropy, 31(2), e70052. https://doi.org/10.1002/nvsm.70052
Russell James, J.D., Ph.D., CFP®️ is a professor at Texas Tech University. He directs the on-campus and online graduate program in Charitable Financial Planning and also teaches Charitable Gift Law at the Texas Tech University School of Law. Dr. James has over 100 publications in academic journals, conference proceedings, professional periodicals, and books including 20 on neuroimaging and neuroeconomics. He has been quoted in a variety of news sources including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC News, U.S. News & World Report, USA Today, the Associated Press, Bloomberg News and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
