How to Start a Legacy Society and Actually Steward Its Members
By Rhen Hoehn, Director of Marketing
Most legacy societies fail quietly. Launching is the easy part, but maintaining can be a struggle. The societies fail in year four, when the founding development director has moved on, nobody has written to the members in eighteen months, and a charter member dies whose bequest was removed from her will two revisions ago. No one at the organization ever knew.
Enrolling members is a quick job, but keeping the relationship alive across the fifteen or twenty years until the estate is settled is the actual work. Most organizations underinvest in it.
This article walks the full arc: launch, enroll, acknowledge, steward annually, report, handle changed circumstances, and receive the gift, including the work after a donor's death that most guidance skips entirely.
In this article
- What is a legacy society?
- How do you start a legacy society?
- What should you name a legacy society?
- What does membership actually commit a donor to?
- How should you acknowledge a bequest intention?
- How often should you contact legacy society members?
- What belongs in an annual impact report for legacy donors?
- What do you do when a donor's circumstances change?
- What happens after the donor dies?
- Common mistakes in legacy society management
- Frequently asked questions
What is a legacy society?
A legacy society is a named recognition program for donors who have told your organization they have included it in their estate plans, through a bequest in a will, a beneficiary designation on a retirement account or life insurance policy, a gift annuity, or a trust.
Three features define a legacy society. Membership requires only that the donor notify you. Gift size is never disclosed. And the underlying commitment stays revocable (she can change her will next month) and membership implies no obligation not revoke.
For a Catholic organization, the society does something a secular recognition club cannot. It gives the community a way to pray for this donor by name while she is still alive to know it. That is not decoration; it is why Catholic societies hold members well.
How do you start a legacy society?
You need three things to launch. Not a budget, not a committee, not a brochure.
- A name, chosen deliberately. See the next section.
- A simple enrollment form. One page: name, contact information, type of provision made, whether the donor wants to be listed or remain anonymous, and the ministry she wants the gift to support. Do not ask for the amount.
- An acknowledgment letter signed by the pastor or executive director, signed personally, not with a digital signature block.
Before you announce anything publicly, identify five to eight donors who have already signaled an estate intention: someone who mentioned a bequest in a meeting, returned a reply card, or asked how to word a will provision. Invite them as charter members.
That invitation matters more than the public launch. Charter members give the society credibility, and their willingness to be named gives other parishioners permission to consider the same thing. A society with eight founding members is a real society. A society with a logo and no members is nothing beyond a brochure.
Then plan a charter Mass or reception within six months. A date on the calendar converts a good idea into a real program, and the Mass is the most natural way to gather this group without making the evening feel like a solicitation.
Keep year one deliberately small: one Mass intention, one letter, one gathering. Organizations that promise a quarterly newsletter, an annual dinner, a lapel pin, and a reflection series in the first twelve months tend to deliver none of it by year two.
If you have no planned giving program to attach this to, start there, see our guide to starting a planned giving program in a parish.
What should you name a legacy society?
Catholic organizations have a genuine advantage when it comes to naming their legacy society.
Secular nonprofits reach for the same handful of society names: Heritage Circle, Legacy Circle, Founders Circle. They are interchangeable and they say nothing. A Catholic institution has three naming wells no secular peer can draw from.
- A patron saint. A parish dedicated to Our Lady names its society after a Marian title. A school founded by Franciscans names it for Saint Francis or Saint Clare.
- A founder. A hospital or academy carries the name of the congregation or individual who began the work, strongest where the founder's story is still told locally.
- A charism. Mercy, hospitality, stewardship, service to the poor. Naming the charism tells a donor what the organization believes it is for.
There are two considerations before you commit to a name.
- Is it easy to understand for a donor who knows nothing about your institutional history? A name that needs a paragraph of explanation will be explained badly by volunteers.
- Does it sound faith-related rather than institutional finance? "The Bishop's Endowment Council" fails that test.
Search the name, too. Diocesan and Anglican bodies share a surprising number of these titles.
Catholic legacy society examples worth studying
These are real, verifiable programs. Each one is doing something specific you can borrow.
| Organization | Society name | Distinguishing feature |
|---|---|---|
| Diocese of Wichita | Grateful Steward Legacy Society | Monthly Mass intention offered by the bishop; annual Evening of Appreciation; estate gifts directed to parishes are exempt from the standard 10% diocesan tithe |
| Archdiocese of Boston | Catholic Legacy Society for the Archdiocese of Boston | Administered through the Catholic Community Fund, a shared administrative backbone parishes and ministries do not have to build themselves |
| Archdiocese of San Francisco | Society of Saint Francis | Honorary membership; welcome letter from the Archbishop; a Society lapel pin; annual Archbishop's Mass and Reception |
Wichita's tithe exemption is a piece of brilliance in Catholic planned giving. It removes the parish's structural disincentive to promote estate gifts, because the parish keeps the whole gift. If your diocese assesses parishes on income, ask your finance office whether an estate-gift exemption exists. If not, that conversation is worth having.
Wichita also frames membership as an affirmation that stewardship is the foundational spirituality of Catholic life, and says plainly that members are meant to inspire others to consider their own legacy.
What does membership actually commit a donor to?
Nothing. And you need to be able to say that cleanly in the first ninety seconds of any conversation about joining.
A legacy pledge and a confirmed bequest are not the same thing. A bequest intention is a revocable expression of intent; the donor has said what she plans to do, and no enforceable gift exists until death and the settlement of the estate. A confirmed bequest, where she has voluntarily shared the relevant will or trust language, gives you more planning certainty. It does not make the gift binding.
Four rules follow, and all four should be in your society's governing document before you enroll a single member:
- Membership carries no financial obligation and no dues.
- Membership never implies the commitment is irrevocable.
- Gift size is not disclosed, tracked in published materials, or used to tier members.
- Any written or verbal indication of a commitment is sufficient for membership. Documentation can follow later, at the donor's initiative, or never.
Anonymity is honored without exception. A donor who asks not to be listed must be flagged in your database in a way that survives staff transitions, software migrations, and the enthusiasm of a new communications hire building an anniversary publication.
For language on how to raise the subject in the first place, see how to talk to donors about planned giving.
How should you acknowledge a bequest intention?
Written confirmation goes out within one week or less.
The donor has just performed one of the most significant financial acts of her life, usually after prayer and a conversation with her family. Fail to properly steward her gift, and she will notice.
The letter should do five things:
- Express gratitude specifically
- Acknowledge the intention without characterizing it as binding
- Welcome the donor into the society by name
- Name one staff person as her contact, and
- Include a prayer for her and her family.
It must not describe a revocable commitment as legally binding, and it must not overstate your claim to any asset. That is an ethical line and a practical one, a donor whose circumstances change should never feel she has to extract herself from a contract.
A revocable intention is not a completed gift, so there is nothing to substantiate. Written acknowledgment is required for completed, irrevocable gifts at or above an IRS threshold.
Finally, the handwritten note. A few lines in the pastor's or president's own hand, added to an otherwise typed letter, carries weight with legacy donors. Make it standard practice.
How often should you contact legacy society members?
Four meaningful contacts per year.
Four keeps the relationship warm without burdening a one-person shop. Fewer contacts, and members can drift. More contacts, promised and not delivered, is worse than four delivered reliably. Calibrate the channels and timing to the donor's preferences; some members want a phone call and no mail at all.
"Meaningful" is the important word. A mass appeal letter that happens to land in a member's mailbox is not a contact. Here is a calendar that works, built around the liturgical year:
| When | Contact | Form | Why this timing |
|---|---|---|---|
| January (New Year or Epiphany) | Personal note | Signed letter or card from the pastor or director | Opens the year with gratitude, before any ask exists |
| Spring | Mission update | Short letter tied to a ministry the donor cares about | Evidence, not sentiment. A donor who named the school in their will should hear about students, for example. |
| Early November (All Souls Day) | Personal phone call | Staff call; Mass offered for living and deceased members | The one point in the year when a conversation about death, memory, and legacy is natural rather than awkward |
| December | Year-end gratitude | Note or card, explicitly not an appeal | Thanks in the one month when everything else the donor receives is an ask |
Add mission milestones as invitations rather than extra mailings: a building blessing, an ordination, a first Mass, a founder's feast day. An invitation to something real is stronger stewardship than a newsletter.
And use the tools secular organizations do not have. A Mass offered for a donor's intentions. A prayer card at a meaningful feast day. A note from the pastor. An invitation to a blessing. None cost money, and all communicate something a donor reception cannot. For a framework you can adapt, see the twelve days of donor stewardship.
What belongs in an annual impact report for legacy donors?
A legacy donor impact report is a short annual publication written for people who have already committed. It should not be your general annual report with a new cover.
Four to eight pages is right for most organizations. It should arrive annually at a consistent time, the same month every year so members come to expect it, always accompanied by a personal note from the development director or a mission leader.
It communicates:
- Mission impact. One person's story does more than a page of aggregate figures. Programs funded, people served, names where privacy allows. Legacy donors need evidence that the mission they chose to perpetuate is alive.
- Financial health. Not an audit. Clear indicators that the organization is sound enough to receive and steward what it will one day inherit. Legacy donors are quietly asking this question, whether or not you answer it.
- Personal connection. Address the donor by name and reference her specific relationship to the organization. A paragraph from the pastor or executive director acknowledging legacy members as a distinct and cherished group is the difference between relational and institutional.
The point is to show the donor that her legacy will sustain a living sacramental community, not an institution. That is what she decided to fund.
What do you do when a donor's circumstances change?
Over fifteen years, things change. A member faces a medical crisis, loses income, remarries, or comes under pressure from adult children who have discovered the will. Sometimes a donor simply changes her mind.
If you have maintained a genuine relationship, you will usually know before the will is revised. That is the practical argument for the four-contact calendar.
When a donor raises the possibility of reducing or removing a gift, the response is gracious and immediate: her family comes first, and the relationship with the mission is not contingent on the gift. Say it plainly. A donor who keeps the relationship and reduces the gift is a far better outcome than one who feels trapped, says nothing, quietly revises the will, and stops attending anything.
Do not negotiate. Do not remind her what she said five years ago. The AFP Code of Ethical Standards prohibits exploiting a donor relationship for organizational benefit, and this is exactly the situation that provision exists for.
If cognitive decline or undue dependence becomes a concern, stop gift conversations entirely and consult organizational leadership about the right pastoral and legal posture. Encourage donors to keep their own estate planning attorney informed as circumstances change. That is the attorney's job, not yours.
What happens after the donor dies?
Here is where most guidance stops and roughly a third of the operational work begins.
Notification. You may learn of a member's death from the family, the obituary, a parish staff member, or months later by letter from an attorney. There is no reliable channel. Review obituaries against your member list, and make sure front-office staff know a death notice about a legacy member goes to development the same day.
Working with the personal representative. The executor or personal representative, often an adult child and sometimes an attorney or bank trust officer, administers the estate. Provide your legal name, EIN, and mailing instructions promptly and in writing, and designate one staff contact. Never pressure the representative about timing; they are frequently grieving and always overwhelmed.
Timelines. Probate takes far longer than development officers expect. Simple estates commonly take many months. Estates involving real estate, a closely held business, out-of-state property, or an unhappy heir routinely run past a year and sometimes well past two. Do not book the revenue, spend against it, or put it in a campaign total until it is in hand.
Contested wills and unfulfillable restrictions. Occasionally a family challenges the will, or a gift arrives restricted to a school that has since closed. Both go to counsel and, for parishes and diocesan entities, to the diocesan finance office. Both also involve a judgment about relationship cost. A gift won in court from a family that will never speak to you again is not always a win.
Stewarding the surviving family. Offer a Mass for the deceased. Write to the spouse and children naming what the gift will do. Include the donor's name in your benefactor list if she permitted it, and honor her anonymity if she did not. The family of a legacy donor is among the most likely future legacy donors you will meet, and the group most consistently ignored.
Track the pipeline in four stages
Legacy programs feel unmeasurable because most organizations record them inconsistently. There are four stages that should be recorded the same way by everyone who touches the CRM:
| Stage | What it means | What triggers it | What to record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Awareness | The donor knows planned giving is possible here | A bulletin response, seminar attendance, reply card, or web inquiry | Source, date, materials sent |
| Intention | The donor has indicated she plans to include you | A verbal or written statement in a visit, letter, or form | Date, vehicle if known, staff who received it, enrollment status |
| Expectancy | The intention is documented well enough to plan around | Donor voluntarily shares will or trust language, or a beneficiary confirmation | Vehicle, restriction language, conditions, date documented |
| Realized | The gift has been received | Funds or property transferred from the estate | Amount, date, designation, and whether it matched the recorded expectancy |
Two metrics fall out of this and both belong in front of leadership: how many members moved from intention to expectancy this year, and how closely realized gifts matched what was recorded. The second tells you, over time, whether your stewardship is working.
Common mistakes in legacy society management
Under-stewardship. The central failure. Organizations spend six months designing a launch, then let the relationship drift and discover at the donor's death that the gift was removed years earlier. Most of what follows is a variety of this one.
Launching with a name and no members. Recruit five to eight charter members first.
Setting a minimum gift. A minimum tells the parishioner of modest means that her decision does not count, and she is often the member who follows through most faithfully. The same objection applies to tiering members by gift size, which also pressures donors to disclose amounts you have no business asking for.
Treating enrollment as a closed file. A legacy intention begins a fifteen-year relationship. It does not end a cultivation.
Letting the society die with a staff transition. The stewardship calendar, member list, anonymity flags, and governing document must live in shared systems, not in one person's inbox.
Language that implies the gift is locked in. It creates ethical exposure and makes donors defensive.
Breaking anonymity by accident. Almost always a well-meaning communications project working from an unflagged list.
Booking the expectancy as revenue. Probate timelines and will revisions make this a budgeting error waiting to happen.
A report that is just the annual report. If a member could download the same document from your website, it is not stewardship.
No plan for the day after the death. Decide now who handles estate notification and how you steward the family, so the decision is not made badly in a hard week.
Frequently asked questions
How many members do you need to start a legacy society?
Five to eight charter members is enough. Recruit them from donors who have already signaled an estate intention, invite them personally, and launch publicly only after they accept.
Should a legacy society have a minimum gift amount?
No. Several of the strongest Catholic examples, the Diocese of Wichita's Grateful Steward Legacy Society and the Diocese of Charleston's Catholic Heritage Society among them, have no minimum. Membership recognizes the act of making a provision, not its size.
What are some good legacy society names?
Name it for a patron saint, a founder, or a charism tied to your institution. "Society of Saint Francis" and "Catholic Heritage Society" work because they connect to identity; "Heritage Circle" does not. Test the name on an outsider, and search it before printing anything.
Do donors have to show us their will to join?
No. Any written or verbal indication of an estate provision is sufficient. Some donors will share will or trust language later, which helps your planning, but never require it as a condition of joining.
Can a legacy society member change her mind?
Yes, at any time, and your materials should say so. A bequest intention is revocable until the donor's death. Membership carries no financial obligation and does not make the commitment binding.
How often should we contact legacy society members?
Petrus recommends four meaningful contacts a year: a January note, a spring mission update, a personal call around All Souls Day, and a year-end thank-you. Deliver four reliably rather than promising six and managing two.
Do we send a tax receipt for a bequest intention?
No. A revocable intention is not a completed gift, so there is nothing to substantiate. Send a gratitude and confirmation letter instead. Completed irrevocable gifts do require written acknowledgment at or above an IRS threshold; verify the current requirements, and have counsel review documentation for funded trusts and gift annuities.
What do we do when we learn a legacy society member has died?
Offer a Mass and write to the family within days. Separately, open the administrative track: identify the personal representative, provide your legal name and EIN in writing, designate one staff contact, and expect probate to take many months or longer. Do not count the gift until it arrives.
This article is written for fundraising professionals and does not constitute legal or tax advice. Donors considering any planned gift involving estate documents, trust agreements, or beneficiary designations should consult a qualified estate planning attorney. Organizations should consult their own counsel and their diocesan development office before accepting complex gifts.
Where this fits in your planned giving program
A legacy society is not a planned giving program by itself. It is the recognition and stewardship layer that keeps one alive. Start with the complete guide to Catholic planned giving for the full picture, and use bulletin announcements and planned giving communications to generate the awareness that feeds enrollment.
READY TO BECOME A BETTER FUNDRAISER?
Sign up below toĀ receive tools, ideas, and inspiration to take your development efforts to the next level.
We hate SPAM. We will never sell your information, for any reason.
