Every year generous people write gifts into their wills to support their favourite charities, ultimately giving around £3 billion in legacy gifts annually. Charities are increasingly investing in legacy fundraising i.e. they’re becoming proactive in encouraging their stakeholders to consider doing the same.
Historically, legacy income was largely concentrated amongst the biggest charities, but recently, the picture has been changing, with an increasing number of often smaller charities benefiting. Indeed, small charities are performing particularly well. As Meg Abdy of Legacy Foresight points out, it’s the smallest, youngest charities who are now seeing the fastest growth – 10 per cent a year. This trend is only likely to continue with the legacy market predicted to grow dramatically over the next few decades.
Even the smallest charities can get involved in legacy fundraising – and there’s a lot you can do to promote gifts in wills that won’t cost you very much at all, as per the tips that follow.
1. Pull together the information a potential legacy donor might need
Even if you don’t actively promote gifts in wills, and even if you intend to do no other legacy promotion, it’s a good idea to have the information someone might need if they come to your organisation proactively. Indeed, not having access to the correct information has been proven to be a real bugbear for solicitors supporting people who are writing charities into their wills.
Helpful information is likely to include your official name, address and registered charity number. It’s also a good idea to think through whether you’re happy to accept restricted gifts i.e. those that must be spent on a specific project, and what kinds of projects you would be comfortable enabling a donor to focus their gift on. Are you likely to still be running the same kind of work in 10-20 years, for example?
2. Add a line about legacies to your literature
Whenever you’re reprinting or developing materials for various audiences, from leaflets for service users, to email footers, to donor communications, can you include a line about the importance of giving in general and legacies in particular? You might, for example, include something like ‘XYZ organisation is a charity, and we rely on donations and legacies’. Often people don’t realise that our organisations are actually charities, or that it’s possible to support us philanthropically, so this approach could benefit your general fundraising, as well as getting the message out there about legacies.
3. Approach those who are closest to you
One of the most powerful ways of talking about legacy giving is through case studies of what other people have done. For small charities, this can become a bit of a chicken and egg scenario – they’re just getting started in the area so don’t have donor case studies. Trustees and senior staff can be a great place to start. If they include the charity in their wills, they can share their story with others through charity communications such as the website, social media and talks in the community. Their gifts don’t have to be particularly large – it’s their story which really matters.
4. Tell stories
Linked to point 3, story-telling more generally is a great way to encourage people to think about gifts in wills, whether that’s stories about people who’ve died and the difference their gifts have made, stories about work funded by legacy gifts or stories about people who plan on leaving a gift in the future. Talking about legacies through stories is a really gentle way to introduce the idea of leaving a gift and can take the fear out of talking about something which involves the taboos of death and money. We can share these stories through our existing communications from Facebook posts, to our websites, to our annual report.
5. Encourage colleagues to talk about legacy giving
The legacy giving message can be amplified many times over if all the staff and volunteers in a charity are confident to talk about legacy gifts. If someone asks a volunteer in your charity how they could support you, how many of them would mention a gift in a will as an option? Or if they were giving a presentation, how many people would include a slide about gifts in wills? You can take the principles already mentioned here, such as repeating the message little and often, or telling stories, and use them internally as well as externally. This can help to normalise the idea of legacies as a way to support your organisation for your colleagues. If resources will allow, you could also provide them with some training to increase their confidence around the subject. The more people who are confident talking about legacies and including them in their wider work, the greater reach you can achieve with your message.
Of course, as time goes on there’s a lot more you can do to spread the legacy message, and, if budget allows, you can begin to invest in paid promotions. However, by starting with these top tips, you can begin to let people know that, through a gift in their will, they can make a real difference to people in their local communities – and what could be a better legacy to leave behind than that?
[1]
https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/voices/meg-abdy-key-facts-and-trends-in-today-s-legacy-market.html
Claire works for Legacy Fundraising Ltd and can be contacted by emailing claire@legacyfundraising.co.uk
She can also be found on Twitter @claireyjaneR
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