Every faith-based nonprofit we talk to this year is hearing the same message from their fundraising consultants and denominational networks: planned giving is where the growth is. The 2026 Pulse Survey on faith-based fundraising showed leaders naming planned gifts as one of the top drivers of future revenue, and Giving USA's mid-year read on religious giving pointed in the same direction. The pipeline of donors thinking seriously about how their estate will reflect their faith is larger than most ministries realize.
And yet the page most ministries have on their website for that conversation is, honestly, thin. A short paragraph, a phone number, maybe a PDF from a denominational partner that hasn't been updated in three years. If planned giving is going to carry more of the load in the years ahead, the page has to earn its place.
Why the page matters more than the brochure
A generation ago, the planned giving conversation started with a mailed brochure and a lunch. It still often ends with a lunch. What has changed is the middle. People do their private, unhurried thinking on a website, at night, with the door closed. By the time a donor calls the office to ask a question, they have already read three or four pages, compared what your ministry offers to what a hospital or university offers, and formed a rough picture of what a gift might look like.
That means the planned giving page is not a summary of the conversation you hope to have. It is the conversation, or at least the opening minutes of it. The tone, the specificity, and the clarity of that page decide whether the phone call happens at all.
What actually belongs on the page
We help ministries build these pages regularly, and the ones that convert have a small number of things in common.
A named contact who is a person, not a role. "Contact our development office" is a wall. A photo, a first name, a short line about why this staff member cares about legacy giving, and a direct email opens a door. Planned gifts are made through relationships, and the relationship has to have a face.
Plain-language gift types, not IRS section numbers. Most donors do not know what a Charitable Remainder Unitrust is, and they should not have to. The page should describe the three or four options most donors actually use, in one or two sentences each: a bequest in a will, a beneficiary designation on a retirement account or life insurance policy, a gift of appreciated stock, and a qualified charitable distribution from an IRA for donors over 70 and a half. Anything more exotic can live on a second page.
Sample bequest language, ready to copy. The single most useful thing you can put on this page is a short, correct paragraph an attorney can drop into a will, with your organization's full legal name, address, and tax ID. Donors and their attorneys are looking for exactly this. Making them ask for it costs you gifts.
A story, briefly told, with permission. One family. One reason they made a legacy gift. One outcome the ministry is now able to sustain because of it. Two or three paragraphs, not two or three pages. Faith-based donors respond to specificity, not scale.
An honest note about what happens next. If a donor emails the address on the page, what should they expect? A same-week reply? A short call, no pressure? A packet in the mail? Naming the next step in one sentence lowers the risk of reaching out.
What does not belong on the page
A ticking counter of "legacy society members." A stock photo of hands holding a globe. A jargon-heavy tax primer that reads like it was written by a firm that also sells the products. A form that asks for phone number, address, employer, and reason for interest before a person has even asked a question.
Faith-based donors are, in our experience, remarkably discerning about tone. They can tell within a paragraph whether a page was written to serve them or to funnel them. The pages that funnel do not fail loudly. They just quietly do not get used.
The theology, held gently
The best planned giving pages we have helped build do one more thing. They name, without pressing, the reason a Christian family might consider a legacy gift in the first place. Not a proof text. Not a guilt lever. A short paragraph that acknowledges that how a family stewards what they have been given is a matter of conscience, and that your ministry considers it a privilege, not an entitlement, to be part of that conversation.
Held gently, that paragraph does more work than any campaign slogan. It signals that the ministry understands the weight of what is being discussed and will not treat the donor as a transaction.
A realistic timeline
If you can give this page two afternoons of focused work with your executive director, a development staff member, and someone who can write clearly, you can ship a meaningful upgrade before the end of September. That puts it in place well ahead of the fall giving season, when families sitting down with their financial planners are most likely to open a browser tab and see what your ministry actually offers.
If you would like a second set of eyes on your current planned giving page, or help building one from a blank slate this fall, we would be glad to talk. We help faith-based nonprofits shape pages that honor the donors sitting on the other side of the screen and the mission the gift will one day carry forward.