FreeWill for Nonprofits: Planned Giving and Legacy Gift Platform
Your organization's most impactful gifts are often the ones you never knew to ask for. FreeWill gives nonprofits a complete planned giving program, offering donors free estate planning tools while tracking committed bequests, processing tax-advantaged gifts, and connecting you with donors who are already writing their wills.
What It Does
Planned giving, meaning bequests and legacy gifts left through wills, trusts, and beneficiary designations, represents one of the largest and most untapped funding sources for nonprofits. Yet most organizations lack the staff, tools, or donor-facing infrastructure to run a real planned giving program. FreeWill closes that gap by providing free, legally vetted estate planning tools to your donors while giving your team the tracking, marketing, and analytics to build a sustainable legacy giving pipeline.
The platform operates on a straightforward model: donors use FreeWill's free will-making tools to create their estate plans, and as they do, they're prompted to include charitable bequests. Your organization gets visibility into committed gifts, donor contact details, and campaign performance data. FreeWill also handles tax-smart giving vehicles including donor-advised funds (DAFs), stock donations, and qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) from IRAs, which are increasingly popular among older donors.
With $13.2 billion raised in commitments across 2,300+ nonprofit partners, estate plans made through FreeWill are statistically 4x more likely to include a charitable gift, and those gifts are 4.85x larger than the national average. For development teams stretched thin, FreeWill describes its offering as "like having a part-time planned giving officer."
Best For
Organization Size
Mid-sized to large nonprofits with established donor bases of 500+ supporters. Smaller organizations can benefit if they have donors with significant wealth and a development staff member to manage the program.
Best Use Cases
- Organizations launching or scaling a planned giving program
- Nonprofits seeking to accept DAF grants, stock gifts, or IRA distributions
- Development teams without a dedicated planned giving officer
Ideal For
- Chief Development Officers and VPs of Philanthropy
- Major gifts officers expanding into planned giving
- Executive Directors of established nonprofits
Key Features for Nonprofits
Free Estate Planning Tools for Donors
Provide your supporters with free, legally vetted will-making tools including last wills, revocable living trusts, beneficiary designations, power of attorney, and healthcare directives. Donors appreciate the value, and charitable prompts are built into the process at natural decision points.
Legacy Gift Tracking and Pipeline
Track committed bequests, gift values, and donor contact information in a centralized dashboard. Get visibility into your planned giving pipeline before gifts are realized, enabling better cultivation and stewardship of your legacy society members.
Tax-Smart Giving Suite
Simplify the acceptance of donor-advised fund grants, stock and securities donations, qualified charitable distributions from IRAs, and cryptocurrency gifts. These giving vehicles are growing rapidly among older donors and can represent significant gifts that many nonprofits currently miss.
National Featureship and Donor Acquisition
Get your organization in front of donors who are actively writing their wills on FreeWill's platform. Featureships place your nonprofit as a suggested charitable beneficiary for users in your target geography or cause area, reaching supporters at the exact moment they're deciding how to allocate their estate.
Custom Marketing Campaigns
FreeWill's team provides data-tested campaign content, strategic guidance, and expert-led training to help you engage your existing donor base around planned giving. This includes email templates, talking points, and campaign calendars tailored to your organization.
Analytics and Campaign Performance
Track campaign performance, donor engagement, and committed bequest totals through built-in analytics. Understand which outreach strategies are driving estate plan completions and gift commitments, both through the FreeWill platform and through external channels.
How This Tool Uses AI
What's Actually AI-Powered
Behavioral Design and Charitable Prompts
FreeWill's platform uses research-backed behavioral design to encourage charitable giving as donors complete estate plans. The prompts are placed at natural decision points where donors are already considering legacy and values, making them highly effective without feeling intrusive. This is not generative AI, but data-driven behavioral optimization informed by millions of completed estate plans.
Campaign Analytics and Optimization
The platform analyzes campaign performance data across its 2,300+ nonprofit clients to identify which outreach strategies, messaging, and timing drive the highest conversion rates. Your organization benefits from patterns learned across the broader network of FreeWill users, not just your own historical data.
Grant Assistant (Separately Available)
FreeWill acquired Grant Assistant, an AI-powered grant writing tool trained on 7,000+ winning proposals that reduces writing time by 70%. This is a separate product from the planned giving suite, available at Grant Assistant's own page.
What's NOT AI (But Still Valuable)
- Estate planning tools and legal documents are human-vetted templates
- Campaign strategy is guided by FreeWill human strategists, not automated AI
- Gift processing for DAFs, stocks, and QCDs is structured workflow, not AI decision-making
- Donor relationship management and stewardship is done by your team
Bottom line on AI: FreeWill's value comes primarily from behavioral design, network effects (exposure to its large donor user base), and human strategist expertise, rather than cutting-edge AI. If you're looking for an AI-native planned giving tool, this is not it. If you're looking for an effective planned giving program that leverages data and proven methods, FreeWill delivers.
Real-World Nonprofit Use Case
Imagine a regional environmental nonprofit with 8,000 donors and a 3-person development team. They have no planned giving program, no way to accept stock gifts easily, and they're leaving significant money on the table from donors who want to give in tax-advantaged ways. They launch FreeWill and send a simple email to their loyal mid-level donors offering free estate planning tools as a member benefit.
Within weeks, dozens of donors complete estate plans and designate the organization as a beneficiary. The team now has contact information and committed gift amounts for supporters they previously only had email addresses for. One donor who gave $500 annually commits a $300,000 bequest, a gift that would never have been discovered through traditional major gift conversations. Another donor uses the QCD feature to make a $25,000 IRA gift, reducing her taxable income while giving more than she would have with a check.
Over the following year, FreeWill's national featureship brings in 45 new contacts who are writing wills and discover the organization for the first time, leading to 12 new committed bequests. The development team now manages a visible pipeline of legacy gifts without hiring a dedicated planned giving officer. YWCA USA achieved a real-world version of this scenario, raising over $8 million in legacy gifts through their FreeWill partnership.
Pricing
Custom Pricing (Demo Required)
FreeWill does not publish pricing publicly. Costs are customized based on organization size, scope, and selected products.
- Planned Giving Suite includes estate planning tools, bequest tracking, marketing support, and strategist access. Custom pricing.
- Smart Giving Suite for DAF grants, stock gifts, QCDs, and crypto. Custom pricing, often structured as a percentage of gifts processed.
- National Featureship for donor acquisition. Custom pricing based on geography and sector targeting.
- Planned Giving Microsites for donor education and campaign landing pages. Available as an add-on.
ROI Framing: A single committed bequest from a loyal mid-level donor can be worth $50,000 to $500,000+. Most nonprofits find that the platform cost is recovered many times over from a handful of committed legacy gifts, making pricing conversations more about timing and readiness than about the fee itself. Verify current pricing directly with FreeWill during your demo.
Nonprofit Pricing
FreeWill is built exclusively for nonprofits, so all pricing is nonprofit-specific by design. There are no "standard" commercial pricing tiers with a separate nonprofit discount. The platform is designed to serve mission-driven organizations, with pricing calibrated to nonprofit budgets and fundraising cycles.
Some Smart Giving Suite products use a percentage-of-gift model rather than flat monthly fees, meaning you pay only when gifts are processed. This aligns FreeWill's incentives with your success.
Note: Prices may be outdated or inaccurate.
Learning Curve
Intermediate
Manageable with FreeWill's strategist support, but planned giving requires internal organizational commitment
Time to First Value
- Onboarding and setup: 2-4 weeks
- First donor outreach campaign: 1-2 months after launch
- First committed bequests tracked: varies, often within 90 days
- Realized gifts: years in the future (nature of planned giving)
Support Available
- Dedicated FreeWill strategist for program guidance
- Campaign content templates and expert training
- Webinars and resource library on planned giving best practices
- Annual planned giving report benchmarks and insights
Integration & Compatibility
Connects With
- Donor management systems (via data export/import)
- Email marketing platforms for campaign outreach
- Your website (embedded estate planning tools)
- Grant Assistant AI (acquired product for grant writing)
Native CRM integration depth varies by platform. Ask FreeWill about your specific CRM during the demo, particularly if you use Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, Bloomerang, or Virtuous.
Data Portability
- Donor contact information and commitment data exportable
- Campaign analytics and performance reports available
- Committed bequest pipeline data accessible for your team
- Confirm specific CRM sync capabilities during your demo
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Turnkey planned giving program: Provides everything needed to launch without hiring a dedicated planned giving officer
- Proven results: $13.2B+ in tracked commitments and statistically larger gifts than the national average
- Donor value: Free estate planning tools are a genuine benefit you can offer supporters, not just a solicitation
- Tax-smart giving coverage: DAF, stock, QCD, and crypto in one platform simplifies complex gift types
- Strategist support: Expert human guidance is included, not just software access
Cons
- Long time to realized gifts: Bequests may not be received for years or decades, requiring sustained internal commitment
- Opaque pricing: No public pricing means significant uncertainty before a demo, which can slow organizational decision-making
- Requires donor education: Training donors to actually use and complete the estate planning tools can be challenging
- Integration limitations: CRM sync depth may not meet expectations for organizations relying heavily on Salesforce or other major platforms
- Best for established orgs: Small nonprofits with minimal donor bases may struggle to see ROI in the near term
Alternatives to Consider
LifeLegacy
A planned giving platform combining estate planning tools with charitable gift focus. Positions itself as less expensive than traditional competitors, which may appeal to budget-conscious nonprofits. Compare scope of services and donor-facing tools carefully against FreeWill's full suite.
BWF Donor AI
Focuses on predictive AI for identifying major and planned giving prospects within your existing donor database. Where FreeWill helps you capture gifts through estate planning tools, BWF's approach uses AI to identify which donors in your current file have planned giving potential. These tools can be complementary.
EverTrue
An AI-powered donor intelligence platform focused on prospect research and wealth screening. Better suited for higher education and healthcare fundraising with large major gift programs. If your organization needs deep donor intelligence and prospect management more than planned giving infrastructure, EverTrue may be the right fit.
Why choose FreeWill: The combination of free donor-facing estate planning tools, a broad product suite covering multiple gift types, national featureship exposure, and human strategist support makes FreeWill one of the most comprehensive planned giving platforms available to nonprofits of all sizes.
Getting Started
Request a Demo and Internal Alignment (1-2 weeks)
Book a demo with FreeWill to understand pricing and fit. Before signing, ensure internal buy-in from leadership, especially if planned giving is new to your organization. This is a long-term program, so organizational commitment matters more than enthusiasm for the software.
Identify Your Planned Giving Audience (2-3 weeks after contract)
Work with FreeWill's strategist to identify the best segment of your donor file for a planned giving outreach. Loyal mid-level donors who have given for 5+ consecutive years are typically the strongest initial audience for estate planning conversations.
Launch Your First Campaign (Weeks 3-6)
Use FreeWill's campaign templates to send a soft-touch email offering free estate planning tools as a donor benefit. Frame it as a service to them, not a solicitation. Track who completes estate plans and which donors designate your organization as a beneficiary.
Build Your Legacy Society and Steward Committed Donors (Ongoing)
As committed bequests come in, formalize a legacy society with recognition and exclusive stewardship. These donors have made a profound commitment and deserve special cultivation. Regular touchpoints, impact updates, and personal acknowledgment from leadership dramatically increase the likelihood they'll maintain their commitments.
Quick Win: Start with Tax-Smart Giving
If planned giving feels overwhelming as a starting point, begin with FreeWill's Smart Giving Suite for DAF grants and stock gifts. These gifts are completed during donors' lifetimes, meaning you see results quickly rather than waiting years. Many development directors are surprised by how many of their existing donors have donor-advised funds and want to use them but don't know how to direct the gift.
Need Help Building Your Planned Giving Program?
Planned giving requires strategy, donor communication, and organizational alignment, not just software.
Launching a planned giving program is one of the highest-ROI investments a nonprofit can make, but it requires thoughtful strategy. If you'd like guidance evaluating FreeWill for your organization, crafting your legacy giving launch plan, or training your team on planned giving conversations, One Hundred Nights can help.
Talk to Us About Planned Giving StrategyFrequently Asked Questions
Is FreeWill free for nonprofits?
FreeWill offers free estate planning tools for donors, but the nonprofit-facing planned giving platform uses custom pricing based on your organization's size and program scope. You'll need to request a demo to get a quote. Many nonprofits find the ROI compelling given that a single committed bequest can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
What types of gifts can FreeWill help nonprofits accept?
FreeWill supports a wide range of gift types: bequests through wills and trusts, beneficiary designations (for retirement accounts, life insurance, and bank accounts), donor-advised fund (DAF) grants, stock and securities donations, qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) from IRAs, and cryptocurrency gifts. The Smart Giving Suite handles tax-advantaged giving vehicles while the Planned Giving Suite focuses on legacy commitments.
How does FreeWill's national featureship work?
FreeWill's featureship places your organization in front of donors who are actively writing their wills on FreeWill's platform. When a donor in your target geography or sector is completing their estate plan, your nonprofit appears as a suggested charitable beneficiary. This gives you access to donors who are already in a giving mindset at the exact moment they're deciding how to allocate their estate.
Does FreeWill integrate with donor management systems?
FreeWill works with many common nonprofit platforms and provides donor data (contact information, commitment amounts, and gift details) that can be imported into your CRM. Native integration depth varies by platform, so it's best to ask FreeWill specifically about your CRM during the demo.
How long does it take to see results from FreeWill's planned giving program?
Planned giving is inherently a long-term strategy since bequests typically aren't realized until a donor passes away. However, you can start tracking committed bequests and gaining donor contact information quickly, sometimes within weeks of launch. Some organizations see millions of dollars in committed legacy gifts within their first year, though actual gift receipt may be years in the future.
Is FreeWill suitable for small nonprofits?
FreeWill works best for nonprofits with an established donor base and at least some development capacity. Very small organizations (under 500 donors) may find the investment harder to justify unless they have donors with significant wealth. Mid-sized and larger nonprofits with loyal donor communities tend to see the strongest ROI.
Does FreeWill use AI?
FreeWill's primary planned giving platform uses research-backed behavioral design and data analytics rather than generative AI. Their separately acquired Grant Assistant product uses AI for grant proposal writing. The planned giving platform itself focuses on campaign analytics and behavioral design to encourage bequest completion.