Planned Giving Communications: Bulletin, Pulpit, Email, Web

 By Rhen Hoehn, Director of Marketing

Most nonprofits don't have a planned giving communications problem. They have a planned giving silence problem. The program exists on paper, the pastor is supportive, someone drafted a legacy society name two years ago, and nothing has appeared in communications since. Not because no one is willing, but because nobody is sure what to say, and saying it badly feels worse than saying nothing.

That is half right. A tax-first appeal reads as a solicitation from a financial services firm. A mortality-tinged bulletin blurb reads as ghoulish. Both are worse than silence, and both are avoidable.

What follows is not a template library. It's the standard each channel has to meet: bulletin, pulpit, email, web page, and mailed appeal, plus the language choices that separate a Catholic appeal from a generic nonprofit one. Once you get the standard right, the drafting gets easy.

Why do planned giving communications need different rules?

A planned giving communication invites a donor to extend their support of the mission beyond their lifetime, usually through their will or a beneficiary designation. That's a fundamentally different request from an annual fund appeal.

The annual fund asks a donor to meet a present need out of present income. It can be short and urgent, and urgency helps. A planned giving appeal asks for a decision involving their family, their attorney, and their sense of what their life added up to. Urgency doesn't help. It repels.

So the pacing slows. Focus zooms in on the mission before you ever consider mentioning the gift. It leaves room for the donor to think, pray, and talk to a spouse. And it repeats, over years and across channels, because the moment a donor is ready to act is almost never the moment you happened to mail something. If the underlying case is unfamiliar, start with why Catholics make planned gifts and the complete guide to Catholic planned giving.

The Catholic Community Foundation of Cleveland, in its parish legacy giving resources, makes one point plainly: what distinguishes a parish legacy effort that works is personal follow-through, not technical sophistication. The bulletin blurb doesn't close the gift, the named human being who answers the phone does. Every recommendation below assumes that person exists and picks up.

What are the five parts of a planned giving appeal letter?

A planned giving appeal letter is a mailed or emailed invitation to a defined segment of long-tenured donors, asking them to consider a gift through their estate. Build it in five part, in order:

1. Begin with mission, not money. Name what your organization does and why it will still need doing in thirty years. This is the theological ground of the appeal, not a warm-up to the ask. If the first paragraph could be dropped into an annual fund letter unchanged, it isn't doing its job.

2. Follow with one specific, human story. Donors respond to people, not programs. One family, one student, one sacrament, told concretely. Not three examples. One. And it must be true. A composite presented as a real person is a credibility risk you may never recover from.

3. Introduce the planned gift naturally, as an extension of what the donor already does. The pivot sentence matters more than any other line. It should come across as continuity, not escalation: this person has given faithfully for years, and there is a way to keep that going. No technical vocabulary here.

4. Name the organization clearly and offer one next step. Donors and their attorneys need the legal name of the entity that would receive the gift (parish, diocese, foundation, or school), and it's startling how often an appeal omits it. Provide one next step, not a menu of options.

5. Close with gratitude and mission. Return to the vision you opened with. Thank the donor for considering it, whether or not they act. Prayer or blessing language belongs here if it matches your organization's actual voice.

Throughout, write in "you," not "we"; the subject should be the donor's life, not your institution's needs. In a Catholic context that isn't only a copywriting preference: the donor is a disciple responding to a call, not a revenue line responding to a campaign. A page and a half is plenty.

What should a Catholic planned giving appeal never do?

Four things:

Avoid pressure of any kind. A planned gift is freely given or it isn't really given, and your regard for the person cannot depend on how they answer. In practice that means no follow-up cadence that feels like chasing, and no language implying that silence disappoints you.

Which words actually work in planned giving copy?

Plain language beats technical vocabulary, consistently and by a wide margin. The single most useful substitution in the field: "make a gift in your will" instead of "a charitable bequest."

Same instrument, same legal effect, very different response.

"Bequest" is a word donors encounter in documents drafted by professionals. "A gift in your will" is something an ordinary person can picture doing on a Tuesday.

The same principle holds true for the rest of the vocabulary:

• "Name the school in your will" rather than "execute a testamentary provision"
• "Leave part of your retirement account" rather than "designate a qualified beneficiary interest"
• "Talk to your attorney" rather than "consult qualified counsel"

This isn't dumbing anything down. It's the pastoral habit of meeting people where they are. Save the technical terms for the donor's advisor. When a donor asks about gift annuities or remainder trusts, that's a signal to get them on the phone with a person, not to add three paragraphs to a web page. The full range is covered in types of planned gifts.

How do you write a planned giving bulletin or newsletter announcement?

A planned giving announcement in a nonprofit newsletter or parish bulletin is a two-to-four-sentence recurring notice whose only job is to make one idea familiar: you can include the organization in your estate plan, and here is who to ask. It's not an explainer or a case statement. It's planting a seed.

It should be simple. For example:

"Did you know you can extend your love for [Organization Name] into the future by including us in your estate plan? Contact [Name] at [email/phone] to learn how."

Three reasons it works: it is short enough to survive any layout cuts, it says "extend your love" rather than "support our funding priorities," and it names a person.

Don't treat it as a one-off. A single seasonal blurb accomplishes close to nothing; year-round visibility builds recognition. Rotate the copy with a different angle each time and the same invitation:

• The direct invitation (the sample above)
• A legacy society mention: what it is, who belongs, how someone joins
• A short first-person witness from someone who has made the commitment
• A seasonal tie-in, especially October and All Souls Day
• A practical note: the organization's legal name and what an attorney would need

Vary the placement, too; the same notice in the same corner of the layout goes invisible fast.

What should a pulpit announcement accomplish?

A pulpit announcement about planned giving is a two-minute spoken moment connecting a parishioner's faith, their earthly goods, and the mission they have spent a lifetime supporting. Nothing more ambitious than that. It carries weight the bulletin never will, because it carries the implicit endorsement of whoever is standing there.

What it has to do: name the mission in a sentence, acknowledge that people have supported it faithfully, say plainly that a gift through a will is possible, point to one person for more information, and stop. No mechanics, no vehicle names, no dollar framing.

Now the honest part: A pastor reading a script written by the development office sounds exactly like a pastor reading a script written by the development office. Parishioners hear it immediately, and the pastoral endorsement, the whole reason the pulpit works, evaporates. Give him the substance instead: the two or three points that must land, the contact for follow-up, and the four things above he should never say. His words will beat yours.

Stronger still is a parishioner. The USCCB's pastoral letter Stewardship: A Disciple's Response identifies personal witness as the most powerful ingredient in stewardship communication, and planned giving is where that's most obviously true. A longtime parishioner saying why they included the parish in their will does what no staff member can. A legacy society gives you a natural pool of people to ask.

What does a planned giving email sequence look like?

A planned giving email sequence is a short, standalone series sent to a targeted segment, typically long-tenured annual fund donors, with a single subject and a single action. Three messages is enough.

This sequence stands alone: a planned giving mention buried in a newsletter among five other items is not a campaign.

There should only be one call to action (CTA) per email. Single-CTA emails consistently outperform multi-option emails. Give a reader three doors and they take the fourth, which is closing the message.

Send from a person's address, signed by a person, with a reply-to address that a human monitors. The replies are the goal. One donor writing back to say "we've already done this, actually" is worth more than the email's open rate.

What belongs on a legacy giving web page?

A legacy giving page is the digital home of the program, where a donor lands after a bulletin notice, an email, or a talk with their attorney. One good page beats a sprawling microsite. Four elements to include:

One standard is not optional: any page offering sample bequest language should clearly recommend that the donor consult their own estate planning attorney before finalizing any estate document. Put it beneath the sample language, not in a footer.

What should an annual planned giving communications calendar look like?

Two to three standalone planned giving campaigns a year, with light recurring visibility in between. More than three and the segment fatigues; fewer than two and there's no rhythm to notice.

Estate Planning Awareness Month in October gives you a reason to talk about wills that has nothing to do with your budget. All Souls Day, November 2, is the most theologically apt occasion in the calendar: a day the community already spends remembering the dead and praying for them, when a legacy conversation needs no explanation.

Adjust freely. Two things not to adjust: the October and November anchors, and one action per message.

The mistakes that quietly end a communications program

• Launching everything at once, then stopping. Three channels for six weeks followed by eighteen months of silence does less than one bulletin blurb a month for two years.
• No one owning the inbox. Unanswered replies are worse than unsent emails.
• Rotating the contact person without updating anything. Audit the name and contact details on the web page, the bulletin blurb, and the appeal letter every January and July.
• Waiting for perfect materials. A plain page with a real person's name outperforms a beautiful brochure that never ships.

Where can you find real donor-ready materials?

Before building anything from scratch, check your diocese. Several already publish usable parish-facing resources, and adapting theirs beats starting from a blank document. Two worth studying regardless of where you are:

• The Roman Catholic Foundation of St. Louis publishes a parish toolkit at rcfstl.org/toolkit with bulletin inserts, blurbs, and seminar guidance written for parish staff rather than for donors.
• The Diocese of Kansas City–St. Joseph maintains a parish planned giving page with practical materials for parishes standing up a program.

Then ask your own diocesan development office or Catholic foundation what they have. Many have more than their websites suggest, and much of it goes unused because no one asked. Where those materials exist, your work becomes adaptation of your organization's name, your contact, and your story rather than authorship.

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.

Frequently asked questions

How often should planned giving appear in the parish bulletin?

Monthly at minimum, with heavier presence in October and November. Recurring visibility outperforms a single seasonal push, because the moment a parishioner is ready to act is unpredictable. Rotate the copy so the notice doesn't become furniture.

Should the pastor or the development director deliver the pulpit announcement?

The pastor, or a parishioner who has made a legacy commitment. The pulpit works because of pastoral endorsement and personal witness, and a staff member reading marketing copy kills that. Give the pastor the substance and let him speak in his own voice.

Can we put sample bequest language on our website?

Yes, and you should; attorneys look for it. Include your organization's exact legal name, keep it to the sentence or two an attorney needs, and place a clear recommendation that the donor consult their own estate planning attorney directly beneath it.

How long should a planned giving appeal letter be?

Roughly a page and a half. Response depends on the strength of the single story and the clarity of the one next step, not on length. If you can't say who to contact in one sentence, it isn't finished.

Do we need a separate planned giving microsite?

Almost never. One well-built legacy giving page with a named contact does the job and is far more likely to stay current. A microsite that goes stale is worse than a single page updated every January.

Should planned giving be mentioned in the annual fund appeal?

A brief mention is fine, but it isn't a campaign. Planned giving performs best as a standalone message with a single call to action, sent to a targeted segment.

Who should receive planned giving emails?

Start with long-tenured annual fund donors; consistency over a decade or more is a stronger signal than gift size. That segment is small enough to treat personally and the most likely to respond.

Where to go from here

Every recommendation here assumes one thing: a named person who answers when someone responds. The channels create the occasions; the person converts them. Get that name and contact right first, then build the calendar around it.

You'll find broader fundraising resources for Catholic development offices in the Petrus Harbor community, with tools you can adapt to your parish, school, or diocese.