You would think that the Great Wealth Transfer would cause a serious rethinking, if not a jettisoning, of traditional fundraising assumptions, emphases and practices. After all, the GWT constitutes a singular philanthropic “moment,” a 10-to-15 year period in which the largest, wealthiest generation, which holds half of the nation’s wealth, will pass on its assets, mostly to designated heirs. While only one-seventh is estimated to be bequeathed to nonprofits, it’s a huge sum—$13.8 trillion. Philanthropy-seeking organizations will never see a larger tranche of philanthropic dollars or a generation as loyal to nonprofits.
Further, when Baby Boomers pass on, nothing like them will follow in terms of assets or inclinations. The most generous have been giving larger gifts that have masked a larger, ongoing loss of donors. According to the Lilly School of Philanthropy, “A two-decade-long drop in Americans’ participation in charitable giving accelerated during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, even as the average amount given by donors increased.”
The most recent report by the Fundraising Effectiveness Project shows that the decline is continuing in 2025.
Yet, it appears that too few know these facts and even fewer are mobilizing in response. That’s the conclusion that consultants and philanthropic researchers draw when they compare notes about their analysis. Too many non-profit leaders look at one metric: Did we raise more dollars this year than last? If so, all must be okay, even if more comes from fewer people with fewer years left on this planet. In addition, more is coming from “realized bequests” or, as they say in Plainville, dead donors. And that will be increasingly true with every passing year. More of what was “raised this year” will come from individuals who died this year and were on our donor rolls for decades.
Below are 10 tips and considerations for nonprofits to more effectively harness the power of the GWT and overcome funding challenges along the way.
Reshaping Fundraising
Here’s how nonprofits should use these facts and trends to reshape fundraising emphases and strategy:
1. In determining prospect viability and priority, nonprofits should place greater emphasis on the number of years of giving than on the amount contributed in any given year. Nonprofits should consider the donor who’s given modestly for 30 years a more viable prospect than one who’s given more generously but only for a few years.
2. Nonprofits should give loyal donors as a group more attention, for example, through admission to a loyalty society. They should also spend the most time with loyal donors, consult with them most often and treat them like important insiders.
3. Nonprofits should place less emphasis on the technicalities of estate giving, including various trust instruments and their benefits to the donor, because “The most effective way to cultivate planned giving donors is through personalized, long-term relationships rather than transactional approaches,” according to Gitnux, Report 2025, “Planned Giving Statistics.”
4. Therefore, loyal donors should be spread across all fundraising portfolios and not just assigned to planned giving specialists, and all fundraisers should be trained in the basics of estate giving.
5. All human resources within a nonprofit should be mobilized to engage loyal donors. These human resources include board members, volunteers and other individuals within the organization who are natural listeners.
Factors to Consider
Nonprofits must better understand that:
1. The GWT isn’t a tide that will wash evenly across all our organizational shores; it will seek out selective coves and inlets and favor those places that have sustained the largest cohorts of loyal donors of 20+ years and those places that most clearly demonstrate agency—the ability to convert contributions to society’s most vexing problems and most tantalizing opportunities.
2. The GWT is and will be about a transfer of values. Those values include:
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What donors believe to be the most important lessons taught to them by their life and/or their career
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Where they found their greatest joy, peace and meaning in their inner spiritual life
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What they want to preserve or make possible for their children and grandchildren
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ocial mores and principles that they think are most important to preserve and perpetuate
3. Trust, even among the most trusting generations, is in decline. According to a report by Boomerang Fundraising, “36 percent of Baby Boomers have consciously stopped their support” of nonprofits. The reasons for that stoppage stated by those Boomers were that they felt no longer “connected to the nonprofit, not trusting their donation was used wisely, and no longer being able to afford to donate at the top of their reasons why.”
4. The way donors made their money will greatly influence how they give it. Scions of family wealth may favor institutions that have been part of their family for generations, while entrepreneurs may favor start-up nonprofits that embrace innovative and disruptive practices. Those who made their wealth in the corporate world may give to organizations that approach their work in much the same way, while small business owners may gravitate to organizations that build the communities that their companies depend on.
5. If more organizations are to make more of the GWT, they’ll need to shift their lens from:
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Dollars raised each year, to donors retained year over year
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Asking donors to give to an organization, to demonstrating that donors can give through an organization to effect social change
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Relegating fundraising to a small advancement arm, to delegating more constituency-building responsibilities to the whole organization
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Emphasizing pitching and promoting organizational virtues, to celebrating the virtues of their most loyal donors and exploring ways they might be passed forward to coming generations
*This article is an abbreviated summary of “Our Great Under Response to the Great Wealth Transfer,” which appears in the October 2025 issue of Trusts & Estates.
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