The Pentera Blog
The Women You Know Hold the Key to Your Planned Giving Success
With so much focus on well-known female donors, such as Mackenzie Scott or Melinda French Gates, it’s easy to forget that the women much closer to us are also keenly interested in improving our society and our world through giving. For virtually all nonprofits, these less well-known women are essential for tomorrow’s planned giving success.
Survey data consistently shows women are passionate about charitable giving. A 2021 survey by Fidelity Charitable showed 81% of women agree with the statement “I am passionate about creating positive social change,” compared to 72% for men. Women were also more likely than men to agree with the statement “I wish I could be doing more to create positive social change,”—86% to 80%.
Importantly, because women have longer life expectancies than men, when married couples are considered, widowed women are the ones who will make ultimate estate distribution decisions in many families. Of the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s largest estate gifts of 2024, women were responsible for half of them. Even while both spouses are still living, researchers at the Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) at Indiana University in Indianapolis have found wives are more likely to make charitable decisions for married couples than husbands.
All this means reaching women is key to an effective planned giving strategy. To reach them best, it’s important to keep these facts, compiled by researchers at the WPI, in mind:
- Despite generally earning less than men, single women are more likely than single men to give to charity.
- Women donate a larger percent of their income than their male counterparts.
- For women, giving is personal. Compared with single men, single women are more likely to give based on their political or philosophical beliefs.
A woman-led company since 2010, Pentera has long understood the importance of women in planned giving. Company president and CEO Claudine A. Donikian recently concluded a seven-year term on the WPI's advisory council. "Offering Pentera’s clients content and strategies speaking directly to women has been an important priority of mine for more than a decade,” Claudine says. “The excellent results our content geared toward women gets for clients only illustrates how receptive women are to planned giving messaging and the importance of planned giving departments communicating directly to them.”
As “the great wealth transfer” nears, it is more important than ever to have an effective planned giving strategy in place. And to be most effective, women need to be at the heart of that strategy.
You can request Pentera’s whitepaper Women in Philanthropy: They Have the Wealth. Do You Have the Tools You Need to Reach Them? by clicking here.
