Donor Recognition Pays

On holiday in Devon recently, I visited the Donkey Sanctuary, famous for its legacy income. Two things struck me. Firstly, entry was free – a great way to attract new donors from around the country. Secondly, on the walls around the site were huge boards naming their legacy donors, year by year.  They were unmissable and listed the many hundreds of people who have remembered this charity in their wills. So what can we learn from this?

The Donkey Sanctuary calls these boards its Memory Wall and, although it does not make a big play of it in its legacy promotion, it must be having an effect, as legacies account for over £18 million of its £27 million income.

This got me thinking again about how we thank and recognise our legacy donors. Charities do this in many different ways, from the traditional books of remembrance, to plaques on the wall, tree planting, lists in annual reports and, more recently, on their web pages.

What struck me at the Donkey Sanctuary was this very public form of recognition and how it no doubt also functions as a prompt to visitors to leave a legacy. So a combination of free entry, a good visitor experience and public recognition has been very effective in securing donations, including legacies, for this charity. No doubt there are other factors (strong case for support, effective communications programme etc), but this high profile recognition must be significant.

The question then is whether your charity is making the most of its opportunities to thank and recognise its special donors. You may not have any fluffy donkeys or even space for a memory wall, but maybe you have some other opportunities you to be developed? Maybe it is time to review this aspect of your legacy campaign and consider some imaginative ways of thanking and recognising donors?

New Guide to Legacy Fundraising

A new guide is published this week in a series of e-books about managing and fundraising for charities.

The Charity First Series, published by the Social Marketing Partnership, is a new range of practical guides to help charities - especially smaller organisations - to improve their game. The series tackles some important issues, such as legacy fundraising, prospect research and major gift fundraising. Further titles are planned for 2012.

Published at just £7.99 each, they are an affordable way for smaller organisations to access expertise in these areas.

The guides can be puchased as downloadable pdf's here:
http://www.spmfundessentials.org/titles/

Barriers to Legacy Fundraising Revealed

So here we have it - the reasons why so many small and medium sized charities miss out on legacies.

Our survey of 52 charities looked at what was stopping them from maximising legacies and found the two main reasons were a) lack of knowledge and understanding of what to do and b) lack of staff capacity to do it. In third place came a lack of strategic focus.

This was slightly surprising, given all the opportunities for training on legacies and the fact that there is so much information available these days. I had also expected the lack of strategic focus to play more of a role.

The lack of capacity is a harder problem to fix, especially when so many charities are struggling to stand still at the moment. Perhaps there is a link here to the third reason (lack of strategic focus)? If legacies were seen as a strategic priority, then maybe the staff capacity would be found, in lieu of other less profitable activities?

The learning from the survey is clear. The sector needs to make legacy education more of a priority and charities themselves need to address the capacity issue, either by reconfiguring their fundraising activities to include legacies or by seeking external support. The legacy opportunity is just too great to do nothing!

The full report on our survey can be read at:

www.wgconsulting.co.uk/news

Time - our best friend?

We all know that legacy fundraising is not about jam today - in fact this is the key reason why so many charities under-invest in it and let it slip down their priority list. After all, they have work to fund this year and next and fundraisers have targets to meet!

However, some feedback I have just had on a campaign I designed in 2002 has underlined for me again the real value of legacies and the importance of taking a long term perspective.

The campaign I am writing about was planned in 2001 for a small national charity. We ran focus groups to develop the proposition, recruited and interviewed some legacy champions, developed the campaign literature and planned the launch. In March 2002 it all kicked off and the charity then took it over to run things itself. The head of fundraising eventually moved on and - as can easily happen - we lost touch with the charity.

By chance I was recently back in touch and learned that the campaign, which is essentially still the same, has so far raised £3 million for the charity. While I no longer have the budget details, I reckon this means an ROI of up to 100:1 - a pretty good return by any reckoning.

So what has made the difference here? Well the campaign has clearly been effective but there was nothing revolutionary about it. Fairly standard stuff in fact. What has made the difference of course is time - 8 years down the line, it has had time to work (and is still working).

We hear a lot these days about the many things we need to get right in legacy fundraising (the vision, the strategy, the copy etc), but in fact the most important thing is probably to give things enough time. The best campaign will not work if not given time, whereas even a standard, competent campaign can have fantastic results if maintained consistently over a longer period.

This is an important message for fundraisers and trustees to understand. Invest in legacies now and, if you take the long view, you WILL get the return you are seeking, provided you get the basics right.

For more details about our legacy planning work, please visit:

http://www.wgconsulting.co.uk/fundraising-services/legacy-fundraising