How FreeWill is helping smaller nonprofits unlock transformational gifts

How FreeWill is helping smaller nonprofits unlock transformational gifts

For decades, philanthropy has been fueled by cash donations and one-on-one outreach. But digital changes, evolving tax laws, and a rise in donors holding non-cash assets is affecting fundraising methods and how donors give.

It’s been especially difficult for organizations with smaller teams, fewer donors, and fewer resources to embrace change. Unlike well-funded nonprofits, they have a harder time moving to new tools that will allow them to find, convert, and steward the high-impact givers in their supporter base. And they have more of these than they think — they just haven’t been able to provide them with the best ways to give.

I was hired to lead innovation at FreeWill and help these organizations unlock transformational gifts. We decided to change the way we bring FreeWill to them, so that every donor can more easily give, and every fundraiser can embrace non-cash giving. By doing so, I believe we can ignite the philanthropic sector and transform the way we collectively drive change. 


An innovative approach

Through experimentation and research, we found that smaller organizations* benefit from a prescriptive, but innovative, approach. There are three key methods that drive fundraising success and supports the unique way they operate:

1. A longer runway to test and reiterate.

Small organizations need more time to get planned and major giving programs launched. It takes them 24 months or more to successfully build out and test their programs.

For planned gifts (e.g. gift commitments in a donor’s will), they find success through:

  • Repeatedly marketing planned giving to supporters of all ages
  • Testing different channels, marketing copy, and audiences to see what is most impactful at driving gifts

For major gifts, such as stock or Qualified Charitable Distributions (gifts from an IRA), gift officers find success by:

  • Getting really smart about how different giving vehicles work — and the trends that impact these gifts
  • Repeatedly educating supporters on the benefits of non-cash giving
  • Using 1-1 donor conversations to talk about non-cash gifts

A longer runway, generally 24 months, makes sure that there is time to fit key campaigns into communications calendars, and educate and energize their teams on non-cash giving. This enables us to drive and test strategy, exponentially increasing their chances of fundraising success.


2. Data-backed strategies — and being open to experimentation.

From our work with hundreds of nonprofits, we’ve learned how to benchmark fundraising success by size, sector, email list, and more. 

This allows us to find the right strategic ways to educate donors on complex gifts and fundraisers on how to use our tools to solicit them. For example, we know that standalone emails asking for legacy gifts are twice as effective as asking for them in newsletters.

But the learning doesn’t stop there. 

The most successful nonprofits continually work with us to experiment, optimize campaigns, and analyze results to see what better serves their donors and drives high-impact gifts.

In this spirit, we’re currently running eight different tests to further improve strategy (and collect the data to back it up). The results will become a part of the trainings and best practices we offer to partners. 


3. Ongoing education for fundraisers and their teams.

Most smaller nonprofits only focus on fundraising cash. And this is understandable. They have to get money in the door ASAP to survive. But by doing so, they’re missing out on gifts that will secure the future of their organization. Nonprofits that fundraise non-cash gifts grow six times faster than those that don’t. 

Because we know this is so important, we’re pouring a ton of resources into educating nonprofit teams about non-cash giving. These include:

  • Free webinars held since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic
  • Exclusive live trainings — topics cover how to educate donors, use our tools, have effective conversations, analyze content, and more
  • Self-paced masterclasses on non-cash giving vehicles
  • Articles and talking points to keep gift officers up-to-date

All of the education we provide is based on extensive research and proprietary gift data. 

And we try to get our partners’ entire fundraising teams to join in our training initiatives. Our goal is to help them get smarter internally, become donor-centric, and seek the win-win gifts.

In summary

Smaller organizations need to invest in time — not necessarily their gift officer’s daily time, but at least 24 months to test and iterate on their planned and major giving programs.

We’ll help fundraisers keep up the momentum and unlock more gifts, but it’s important that they’re open to experimentation, innovation, and education. Success doesn’t always come in the first six months of launching a program, but it does come when we work together to learn and grow over time.

*We define “smaller organizations” based on a number of factors, but the majority receive less than $2 million a year in individual contributions.


About the author: I am a past major gifts officer and development consultant with 7+ years of experience working with smaller, grassroots organizations to more complex systems like large universities.


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