Bequest giving jumped 19.7% in 2025 — driven largely by one estate. Here's how an investment-driven approach captures the upside without betting the budget on it.
The Giving Institute’s 2026 Giving USA report reported bequest giving totaled $62.19 billion in 2025, up 19.7%. It's tempting to read that as a dependable new engine powered by “the great wealth transfer.” While we have been vocally touting the opportunity for bequest giving for several years, and still believe that now is the time for nonprofits to get into the planned giving game, the report tells a more sober story: bequests “fluctuate from year to year, primarily due to very large gifts made in some years and not in others.” In 2025, 61% of bequest dollars came from estates of $10 million or more — and a single bequest, Paul Allen's $3.1 billion, plus five $50M+ estates on the Philanthropy 50, explain much of the surge. Strip out one deceased tech founder's estate and the “bequest boom” largely evaporates.
A revenue source you can't time is a portfolio asset — not a paycheck.
Why the traditional approach gets organizations in trouble
Two mistakes recur. The first is banking anticipated bequest revenue in the operating budget, then scrambling when an estate doesn't close on schedule. The second is the opposite — neglecting planned giving entirely because it feels too slow and uncertain to justify attention. Both misread the asset. Bequests are the single largest source of deferred planned gifts, and the report rightly urges making them “a top priority.” The issue isn't whether to pursue them; it's how to account for them.
How the Investment-Driven Model responds
Treat planned giving as portfolio construction, not cash-flow forecasting. In investment terms, bequests are a long-horizon, high-variance asset that builds the endowment and the future of the mission. These gifts should be cultivated relentlessly, but never counted in this year's operating goals. An investment-driven program aligns each legacy commitment with the donor's intended long-term impact, stewards legacy donors as investors in the mission's permanence, and reports back on the fund's growth and purpose the way you'd report on any endowed investment. You capture every dollar of upside when a large estate lands — without letting its timing dictate whether you make payroll.
The report agrees with the accounting discipline explicitly: because these gifts don't rely on donors' current income, they shouldn't be mixed into cash-gift targets. Separate the books, and volatility becomes a feature of a long-term asset rather than a threat to operations.
“Since these gifts do not rely on the current income of donors, bequest commitments should not impact goals for cash gifts.” — Giving USA 2026, Practitioner Highlights
Don’t Chase Shiny Things… At Least not Too Quickly
Today, the baby boomer span 62 to 80 years of age and with a current life expectancy of 79 years in the US. Bequests from these estates are just coming into play, so the realized impact of these gifts for nonprofits is years away. While we agree that focusing on building planned and asset based giving is the right strategy for all nonprofits. We also recognize that there is a precarious dynamic that presents itself as Boomers (who are the most significant annual funders for most nonprofits) transition out of income giving and into asset giving. The nonprofit has to cultivate planned gifts, while also cultivating and securing their future sustaining major gifts funders who will replace the boomers’ in annual support.
Major gifts is the engine that produce bequests and other asset-based gifts. Nonprofits must assess their own individual donor trends to identify how to prioritize their development team’s time an energy. The balance of funding todays’ work while also building legacy is simply not prescribable across the industry. It is inherently organizationally unique. Executing without a clear frame of reference on greatest opportunities and threats could be devastating for a nonprofit – potentially trading annual revenue for bequest opportunity, or vice a versa.
The bottom line
Bequests are real, growing, and worth relentless cultivation — but they arrive on no one's schedule. The Investment-Driven Model establishes a baseline for impact driven philanthropy. This foundation is ideal for building bequest giving, rightly treating planned gifts a portfolio asset that funds the future, kept strictly separate from the operating budget. You get the upside of the wealth transfer without betting the year on a date you can't control. And your donors get to fund the impact they value in perpetuity.
