Wednesday 7 November 2012

Size and age of charity need not be a barrier

Fundraisers often equate success with legacies in part to the age, size and profile of the charity. In other words larger, older and well known charities tend to be well placed to raise legacy gifts.

However, I have recently been advising a small charity that is less than five years old, is certainly not a household name and has no supporter database, but which has already received a dozen legacies, including several large residuaries. So how have they achieved this?

The glib answer is more by luck than planning. In fact, until recently, they did not ask for legacies at all. They do not even have a legacy pack and have never run adverts or done legacy mailings - but the gifts still come in.

One thing the charity does have on its side is publicity. It is a benevolent fund and when support is given to someone in need, the local media often pick this up around the country and gifts seem to follow in part from these locations.

The secret I suspect is that the charity makes a very direct and visible difference to the lives of its beneficiaries and people respond well to this. Donors no doubt like the direct link between donated funds and individuals in need. They can imagine the difference the support will make. Maybe they also like the fact that the charity is small and uses volunteers and is therefore not "wasting" money on overblown administration. All these factors seem to combine to make a powerful case for legacies.

The really exciting thing is to imagine the potential when the charity starts to promote legacies effectively. My belief is they have the scope to increase legacy income significantly, just by putting in place some basic soft sell promotion and drip feed. Certainly the strategy we are developing will be aiming to do this, based on their strong case for support.

The key learning point for me is that even small and new charities can soon start to see legacies if they get their case right (even by accident!) and communicate it effectively.