1. The Good the Bad and The Ugly
of Legacy fundraising.
A Serious and light-hearted look
at the market?
Presented at
Institute of Fundraising
Legacy Conference 2012
by Richard Radcliffe FInstF Cert

2. Call for good examples
Outcomes
•7 charities email me saying “please do not
feature my charity I am not responsible for
website”
•6 send me their materials. 2 feature in this
presentation….
•4 do not – in my opinion they are either boring,
bad or ugly. Sorry

3. My name is Richard Davies
• A short history of mystery shopping during the
week of 6th august
• 7 of the top 20 legacy receiving charities
contacted
• Called all charities on Tuesday 7th August. I
said: I am off to my solicitor on Friday how do
I put charity X in my Will

4. So what happened?
• If Sally from Marie Curie is here please stand
up. ☺
• You have an outstanding telephone manner!
• You were my only good experience

5. Other outcomes
• Letter back “thank you for your enquiry about
our free Will scheme”. WRONG
• Telephone call with charity: Why legacy now
but no thank you.
• Rang legacy hotline but given 4 options “Press
1 etc” NOT one of them concerning a legacy
so put phone down

6. Next
• Put through to wrong section and then silence
for 4 minutes 10 seconds so put phone down
• Switchboard told me legacies team are not
there they will phone you back. They didn’t
• Got through to switchboard said they would
put me through – 5 minutes 25 seconds later
still no answer so gave up
I will NOT name and shame but if you want to
know if you were one of the charities come
and see me!

7. Humour
• Can it be used effectively? Let’s listen and
watch one of the earliest legacy videos

12. We can only change the world
• By being different. The future belongs to
those who dare
• Or is “daring” dangerous? There is good
daring and bad daring…..

13. Is humour good or bad?
• “Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a
friendship, and it is far the best ending for
one.” Oscar Wilde

24. Great Ormond Street Hospital

26. GOSH
• REAL SENSE of achievement through legacies

27. Guys Hospital

28. Guys Hospital
• No sight of the charity website (unlike GOSH
which is VERY clear)

38. If a man
• Sees a fly he aims at it!

39. Develop a Legacy brand
• If legacy fundraising is to be noticed have you
considered a legacy brand?
• A legacy brand (as part of your charity brand):
more people will notice, read and
hopefully act

42. Our ageing changing population
2010
•12.2 million over pensionable age (20% of the
population)
•12,641 aged over 100 (was less than 7,000 in 2001)
•Due to be 180,000 by 2050.
•8 million of us will live to over 100
•Aged 85+ - 67% female
•Annual number of Deaths by 2050 – 740,000

43. Older people
• Financial uncertainty is developing fast. Long term
decisions are just not being made.
• Older generations are now witnessing marriage
break ups in their families which complicates
inheritance issues.
• Many men leaving money to “latest wife” on
condition they do NOT re-marry! Is there an
opportunity here? (only joking)
• Biggest issue: LONG term is not being considered.
• Now let’s look at some underwear!

44. 1920

45. 1952

46. 2012

47. Times are changing fast
• But elderly people change more slowly and
they become less tolerant if you do not
understand their lifestyles.

48. Are all campaigns too similar?
• It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it
would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to
fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at
present. And you cannot go on indefinitely
being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must
be hatched or go bad.
CS Lewis

49. Unhappy endings?
Review of focus groups involving 247 donors.
• Not one was happy with
being telephoned and if they
have been phoned here are
some quotes……
• I have struck them off.
• When they asked for my
bank details that was it! End
of conversation.
• I have decided that the call

50. More
• It was awful – it was just so wrong
• I cannot bear any of these calls and there are
so many now. It is intrusive and they have no
right to ask me about my Will
• I found out it was an agency doing the calls so
that was that. Out.

51. How many complained and told
the charity they were out?
1
Telemarketing might well have a role but in my
opinion it is NOT a selling role

52. Unhappy endings are impossible
• I do not know how to bring this session to a
satisfactory completion. Perhaps that sums up
legacy fundraising.
• Completion is Impossible – it is the only way
of giving (or fundraising) which cannot have a
totally useful, true and accurate outcome.
• At the end of the day everyone I have met has
said it was their choice and the choice was not
influenced by ANY charity. But the idea is
SPARKED by the charity

53. The biggest challenges we face
• Ignorance and mis-information which sets wrong
expectations (please put your hand up if your year
end legacy income was within 5% of your legacy
income forecast?)
• Short-termism by Trustees, SMTs and some Directors
of Fundraising who assume legacy fundraising results
only come in after they have left and they need
money NOW cos it is the recession
• Refusal to invest adequate resources in an unknown.

54. Tactics
• Reports that say that something hasn't
happened are always interesting to me,
because as we know, there are known
knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns;
that is to say we know there are some things
we do not know. But there are also unknown
unknowns — the ones we don't know we
don't know.
Thank you Donald Rumsfeld

55. If you need me
• Richard Radcliffe
• richard@radcliffeconsulting.org
• Mobile: 0777 1896680
• Office 01832 710 893
• The Manse, Main
Street, Bythorn Cambs
UK PE28 0QR