Stewardship of Bequest Intenders

Lesson 11
10 minutes

Report the Pipeline Without Spending It

This lesson teaches how to report bequest-intender activity and pipeline judgement honestly: showing momentum, stewardship workload and future opportunity without turning private, changeable intentions into budget income.

Listen to the lesson

Optimism is not the same as income

Course 1 Lesson 9 owns the forecast-versus-confirmed distinction in the Four-Stage Bequest Record. This lesson does not rebuild that record. The planned Administration & Pipeline course will handle full reporting templates, CRM dashboards and board-pack mechanics. Course 1 Lesson 12 owns first-year reporting.

This lesson is narrower.

It teaches the judgement behind the report.

Bequest fundraising creates a particular reporting temptation. The opportunity is real. Research for the JBWere Bequest Report estimates that about $150 billion passes through inheritances in Australia each year, but only around $1.3 billion — roughly 1% — goes to charity. Australian charitable gifts in wills remain uncommon, with sources clustering around 6.5-8% of wills containing a charitable gift. Include a Charity’s 2023 analysis also found that around 61% of realised bequestors were already known to the charity before death.

Those facts justify serious investment in stewardship.

They do not justify spending intentions before they are realised.

Wishart and James found that charitable bequest intentions can change before death. The Facts & Evidence Pack also warns that bequest income is delayed and lumpy: a gift disclosed today may arrive years or decades later, or not at all.

The leadership problem is not usually malice. It is translation.

A fundraiser says:

“We have 48 disclosed intentions.”

A CEO hears:

“We have a future income stream.”

A board member asks:

“What is that worth?”

A finance committee asks:

“Can we include a conservative percentage?”

A campaign consultant asks:

“Can we show this in the capital plan?”

The bequest steward’s job is not to dampen every conversation. It is to keep the language exact enough that strategy does not become fantasy.

A good pipeline report should create confidence in the stewardship system, not false certainty about the money.

The Honest Pipeline Judgement Test

Before reporting bequest-intender activity to leaders, test every statement against six truths.

1
Stage truth
What it is: Report people according to the existing Course 1 Lesson 9 stage: enquiry, interest, disclosed intention or realised. Do not collapse them into one impressive “legacy pipeline” number.
Why it matters: The stage tells leaders what is actually known. An enquiry is not an intention. Interest is not disclosure. Disclosure is not income. Realised is the only stage that has moved from intention into estate or financial reality.
Show it in use:
Accurate: “This quarter we recorded 19 will-wording enquiries, 11 active interest-stage supporters, 6 new disclosed intentions and 2 realised estate gifts.”
Unsafe: “We added 36 people to the bequest pipeline.”
2
Evidence truth
What it is: State the evidence behind the stage. Do not let internal labels outrun donor language.
Why it matters: A record is only as strong as the donor action or wording behind it. Leaders need to know whether a number comes from brochure requests, future-focused conversations, clear disclosures or estate notifications.
Show it in use:
Accurate: “The six disclosed intentions are based on donors telling us they have included, or intend to include, the charity in their will. None supplied a will document, and none was asked to.”
Unsafe: “Six donors confirmed future gifts.”
3
Value truth
What it is: Only report value where it has a proper source, such as realised estate information or a donor-volunteered indication recorded under policy. Do not estimate value from age, suburb, annual giving, property assumptions, wealth screening or hope.
Why it matters: Bequests are frequently much larger than annual giving — the Facts & Evidence Pack notes they are often 10x to 100x a donor’s typical annual gift because they come from accumulated assets. That fact explains why small donors can become significant bequestors. It does not give permission to multiply annual gifts into forecast value.
Show it in use:
Accurate: “Four disclosed intenders have voluntarily shared broad gift information. We hold that as donor-provided, non-binding information. We do not estimate value for other intenders.”
Unsafe: “Based on giving history, the disclosed-intention pool is probably worth $4 million.”
4
Timing truth
What it is: Separate long-horizon stewardship from budget-year revenue.
Why it matters: A disclosed intention may not be realised for many years, and may never be realised. Putting it into next year’s budget or a campaign cash-flow plan changes the organisation’s behaviour. It starts managing the donor as a financial dependency.
Show it in use:
Accurate: “These disclosed intentions indicate long-term relationship strength. They are not allocated to a financial year.”
Unsafe: “We should conservatively count 20% of this in the next five years.”
5
Stewardship truth
What it is: Report the quality and workload of stewardship, not only the count of intenders.
Why it matters: A healthy bequest program is not measured only by how many people have disclosed. It is measured by whether the charity is protecting permissions, cadence, privacy, family sensitivity, recognition choices and continuity records.
Show it in use:
Accurate: “Of 42 disclosed intenders, 31 have current contact preferences recorded, 24 have recognition preferences recorded, and 9 need a permission check before further bequest-specific contact.”
Unsafe: “We have 42 warm legacy donors.”
6
Uncertainty truth
What it is: Name uncertainty without apologising for it.
Why it matters: Uncertainty is not a weakness in bequest stewardship. It is the nature of the gift form. Concealing uncertainty does not make the program stronger. It makes leadership decisions worse.
Show it in use:
Accurate: “Bequest intentions are private and changeable. We report them as relationship indicators and stewardship responsibilities, not as secured income.”
Unsafe: “This is future income; we just do not know when it will arrive.”

The board slide that spent the intentions

A disability advocacy charity is preparing for its annual strategy day. The bequest steward, Imogen, has built careful records over three years.

The current file shows:

– 27 supporters at enquiry stage;

– 18 at interest stage;

– 34 disclosed intentions;

– 3 realised estate gifts currently being administered through finance.

The CEO asks the fundraising director to prepare a slide headed:

“Future Bequest Income: $6.2 million expected.”

The figure comes from a rough internal calculation. A consultant took 34 disclosed intentions, assumed an average estate gift value, applied a probability discount and suggested the charity could show the number as “conservative future income.”

The slide also includes three donor examples:

“Marcia Devlin — long-term monthly donor, likely significant.”

“Tom Adebayo — disclosed will provision after campaign event.”

“Elaine Kruger — no children, property owner, high-value prospect.”

Imogen is uneasy.

Marcia has never disclosed a provision. She requested wording after a webinar and did not respond to follow-up.

Tom did disclose an intention, but said, “Please don’t put numbers around this. I just wanted you to know because the advocacy work changed my brother’s life.”

Elaine has given for 20 years and lives in an expensive suburb, but has never discussed her will. The “no children” note came from a staff member’s memory of a lunch conversation and was never confirmed as stewardship-relevant information.

A weak response from Imogen would be:

“I agree bequests are hard to forecast, but $6.2 million is probably reasonable if we label it conservative. It will help the board see the opportunity.”

A stronger response is:

“I would not present $6.2 million as expected income. The underlying records do not support that.

What we can say is stronger and safer:

‘The charity has 34 disclosed bequest intentions on record. These are private, non-binding and changeable, so they are not budget income. Three realised estate gifts are being administered separately through finance. The stewardship priority this year is to maintain permissioned contact with disclosed intenders, clean up records where consent or recognition preferences are missing, and grow the pool of supporters who understand gifts in wills as a normal option.’

I would also remove Marcia and Elaine from the examples. Marcia is an enquiry-stage supporter, not a disclosed intender. Elaine should not be labelled high-value based on family status or property assumptions. Tom can only be used as an anonymised stewardship example if we respect his request not to put numbers around the intention.”

The CEO pushes back:

“The board needs to see scale. Otherwise this looks soft.”

Imogen replies:

“We can show scale without inventing certainty. The scale is the number of known relationships, the number of disclosed intentions, the quality of permissions, and the realised gifts already in administration. If we turn private intentions into expected income, we will train the board to make decisions on money we do not control.”

That answer does not minimise the program.

It protects it from being misreported into pressure.

Rewrite the next pipeline sentence

Take the next bequest pipeline sentence you plan to give a CEO, board, campaign committee or finance lead. Rewrite it through the six truths.

1. Stage truth

Replace:

“Our legacy pipeline grew to 79.”

With:

“We currently record 23 enquiries, 18 interest-stage supporters, 35 disclosed intentions and 3 realised estate gifts in administration.”

2. Evidence truth

Replace:

“These are confirmed future gifts.”

With:

“These are supporters who have used different levels of language or action. Only realised estate gifts are financial events.”

3. Value truth

Replace:

“We estimate the disclosed-intention pool at $3 million.”

With:

“We do not estimate value unless the donor has volunteered information and policy allows us to record it. Any donor-provided value remains non-binding.”

4. Timing truth

Replace:

“This should contribute to medium-term revenue.”

With:

“These records indicate long-horizon stewardship responsibility. They are not allocated to a financial year.”

5. Stewardship truth

Replace:

“The list is warm.”

With:

“Contact preferences are current for 28 of the 35 disclosed intenders. Seven need a permission review before any further bequest-specific contact.”

6. Uncertainty truth

Replace:

“The income is likely, but timing is uncertain.”

With:

“The intentions are meaningful but private and changeable. They should guide stewardship planning, not budget reliance.”

Then add one leadership sentence:

“The right measure for the next year is not estimated future income; it is whether we improve the quality, permission status and continuity of the intender relationships already entrusted to us.”

Report bequest intentions as stewardship responsibility and relationship evidence, not as money waiting to be scheduled.

What you now know

Bequest pipeline reporting should help leaders take the work seriously without encouraging them to spend what the charity does not own.

The opportunity is real. Australia’s inheritance flow is large, charitable conversion remains low, and many realised bequestors are already known to charities. Those facts support investment.

They do not turn a disclosed intention into income.

Honest reporting separates stage, evidence, value, timing, stewardship quality and uncertainty. It removes unsupported value guesses. It refuses to label private intentions as expected revenue. It still gives leadership a clear reason to invest: the organisation has relationships worth stewarding carefully over the long horizon.

The aim is not to make the pipeline look smaller.

The aim is to make it true.