Closing the Loop on Your Gifts in Wills Pipeline
A lot of work goes into building a strong Gifts in Wills pipeline.
You identify supporters. You have meaningful conversations. You steward them carefully. You record their intentions. You may keep in touch for years, sometimes decades.
But there is one final step that is easy to miss: what happens after that supporter has passed away?
For charities, closing the loop means checking whether confirmed bequestors actually leave the gift they told you about, and if they do not, trying to understand why. It is an important part of protecting your charity’s interests, improving your pipeline data and, most importantly, honouring the final wishes of generous supporters.
Why closing the loop matters
In research that Bequest Assist conducted with Include A Charity, Philanthropy Australia and 27 charities around Australia, we went searching for missing gifts.
Together, those charities submitted around 2,000 names of confirmed bequestors where no gift had been received. We then investigated what had happened by contacting solicitors and purchasing wills from probate courts around the country.
Sometimes the person had changed their will, or the charity was never really included. Sometimes the gift had gone to family members or other charities. But in some cases, the gift had simply gone missing.
The project found that in around 3% of cases, gifts go missing: either negligently or intentionally by someone keeping the money for themselves. In practical terms, if 100 people write your charity into their will today, around 3 of those gifts may not reach you unless someone is checking.
These missing gifts can be small. They can also be very significant. We have seen matters ranging from a few thousand dollars through to millions of dollars missing for charity beneficiaries.
That is only one reason why charities need a process that continues after a supporter has passed away.
Marking someone as deceased should not be the end of the process
Most charities have a process for marking a supporter as deceased in their system.
That might happen because:
mail is returned to sender
a phone number has been disconnected
a family member has notified the charity
the charity has otherwise become aware that the person has passed away
This step is important. It helps avoid distressing communications being sent to family members and keeps supporter records accurate.
But for confirmed bequestors, it should also trigger another process.
If that person told you they had included your charity in their will, what are you doing to check whether the gift is received?
Closing the loop gives your charity the opportunity to answer two important questions:
What percentage of confirmed bequests actually result in realised gifts?
Are there any gifts that should have been received, but have not been paid?
Without this step, a charity may never know whether a gift has been missed.
Start by deciding which records you will track
The first step is deciding which supporter records you will actively follow up after death.
You might choose to track only confirmed bequestors, or a wider section of your Gifts in Wills pipeline or supporter base.
In an ideal world, it would be helpful to check more broadly. Many gifts come from people who never told the charity about their intention. But for a manageable internal process, confirmed bequestors are usually the best starting point.
Use probate checks as part of your process
Once a confirmed bequestor is marked as deceased, your charity can use that as a trigger to check for probate. Bequest Assist has a list of the current locations to search probate in each state and territory on our website here.
At Bequest Assist, we check probate on each record every six months for our clients.
This timing allows for the fact that probate is not always applied for immediately. In many states and territories, probate is usually applied for within 6 months of death. There can also be delays for practical reasons.
A six-monthly checking process gives your charity a practical rhythm for due diligence without creating unnecessary work every week.
What to do if probate has been granted
If you find a probate record, there are generally two practical next steps. You can:
contact the solicitor listed on the probate record, if their details are available
purchase a copy of the will and review whether your charity has been named
In Australian states and territories, a will becomes a public document once probate has been granted. This means a charity can usually purchase a copy without needing to be named in the will. The cost to purchase a copy varies state-to-state.
Why this is about more than income
It is easy to think about missing gifts only in financial terms.
Of course, the money matters. Gifts in wills fund vital work across the charity sector. A missed gift can mean a missed opportunity to support medical research, animal welfare, environmental protection, social services, advocacy, education or community programs.
But this is also about accountability to the supporter.
A person who includes a charity in their will has made a deliberate and meaningful decision. They have chosen to leave part of their legacy to a cause they cared about.
If that gift does not reach the charity because of an administrative error, a misunderstanding, an incorrect charity name or a failure to distribute the estate properly, their wishes have not been honoured.
Closing the loop is one way charities can protect those wishes.
A simple process for charities
If your charity does not currently have a process for this, start small.
A practical process could look like this:
Identify which supporter categories you will track, starting with confirmed bequestors.
Create a system trigger for when a confirmed bequestor is marked as deceased.
Add the person to a probate checking list.
Check for probate every six months.
If probate is found, contact the solicitor or purchase the will.
Record the outcome in your system.
Use the data to better understand your Gifts in Wills pipeline.
This process helps your charity move from assumptions to evidence.
Over time, it can help answer questions like:
How accurate is our confirmed bequestor pipeline? Do we need to reassess our pipeline definitions or processes?
Are there recurring issues with incorrect charity names or charities we may be confused with?
Are any gifts going missing and what is the cost to our charity if we don’t do this exercise?
The final step in good stewardship
Closing the loop after a supporter passes away is part of good stewardship. It protects the charity, strengthens pipeline reporting and helps ensure that generous supporters’ final wishes are carried out.
For Gifts in Wills teams, this is one of the most practical things you can do to make sure the work invested in acquisition and retention leads to real-world impact.
Because when someone has taken the time to include your charity in their will, we owe it to them to make sure their gift reaches the cause they cared about.
- Morgan Koegel, Managing Director, Bequest Assist
