Thursday 24th September @ 12:00 BST

Legacy and In-Memory Fundraising Conference 2026

Ready to grow your legacy and in-memory fundraising? Join our Legacy and In-Memory Fundraising Conference and learn from global experts how to boost gifts in wills and in-memory income. Whether you’re new or seasoned, discover strategies to thrive in a rapidly changing landscape. Book now for an inspiring event in September!

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Legacy giving is one of the most powerful income streams available to charities but most are only scratching the surface.

Sector benchmarks are clear: legacies and in-memory giving are among the strongest areas of fundraising growth right now. And yet, for many charities, the potential far outpaces the reality. Fundraisers know it matters. Leaders want to invest. But without the right skills, strategies, and supporter journeys in place, it stays on the to-do list.

This conference is here to change that that for you.

A morning and afternoon of inspiration, insight, and practical tools

Hosted by one of the sector’s most respected voices in legacy fundraising, this is a rare opportunity to spend a focused four hours going deep on legacy and in-memory giving with people who truly understand it.

You’ll hear from practitioners, specialists, and sector leaders covering everything from the fundamentals to the frontier:

What legacy fundraising looks like in 2026 and where it’s heading
A deep-dive into IHT and pension changes and what they mean for your strategy heading into 2027
How to integrate legacy giving into your wider brand
Real-world case studies to show what’s possible when organisations collaborate
Building legacy journeys that work for small and medium-sized charities
The right offline channel mix for in-memory and legacy marketing
How to turn in-memory supporters into legacy pledgers
Journey automation: making personalisation and measurement actually work
Working sensitively and effectively with bereaved supporters
How events are being used to deepen engagement and build lasting relationships
A forward-looking panel on AI, family and community fundraising, and the future of legacy marketing

Who is this for?

Whether you’re completely new to legacy fundraising or looking to sharpen a programme that’s already running, this conference meets you where you are. It’s for fundraisers who want to grow their confidence and capability in one of the most meaningful areas of the sector, and for legacy and in-memory specialists ready to push their practice further.

Why now?

Legacies represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity for charities. With significant wealth transfer on the horizon and growing public awareness of gift-in-will giving, the charities that build strong legacy programmes today will be the ones that thrive tomorrow.

The skills, relationships, and strategies you develop in this space don’t just drive income. They honour supporters at the most significant moments of their lives.

This is your afternoon to invest in that work.

Busy September 24th? Register anyway and we’ll share the recording, transcripts, and slides.

“What a fantastic afternoon – how conferences SHOULD be! I have never had so much content to take away and ideas to think about (after 26 years as a fundraiser that is saying something). Huge THANK YOU to all the speakers and contributors. You are awesome.”

For questions about the conference, please contact hello@fundraisingeverywhere.com

Want to partner with us? Email nikki@fundraisingeverywhere.com to find out how you can get involved.

If you have any additional access needs, such as BSL interpretation or anything else that would help you take part, please let us know at least 7 weeks before the event. This helps us explore any additional support that may be possible.

Programme

Click here for a screen-reader friendly version of the programme

Session Details

IHT & pensions deep-dive: how to prepare for 2027

Speaker: Alex McDowell, Director of Fundraising, The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award

This session will highlight forthcoming changes to IHT and pensions. There will be a focus on why this matters to all legacy fundraisers and more importantly, the impact it could have on charities and their supporters. We will look at what we know, what we don’t know (yet) and offer some suggestions for how we may be able to prepare for the changes and their impact.

Key Learnings:

– What’s changing in the exciting world of IHT?
– Why does this matter?
– How it may affect your supporters and your charity
– How you may want to prepare
– What we can do collectively (and what we should try not do!)

Understanding the link between legacy and brand

Speaker: Anna Turner, Legacy Futures

There are many questions in the minds of legacy fundraisers about the relationship between brand and legacy income. While there is growing evidence that the two are linked, much of it is anecdotal or based on individual case studies rather than robust, sector-wide analysis. In this session, Legacy Futures will share some initial findings from its ground-breaking new research exploring the relationship between brand and legacy giving, revealing some of the key statistical connections emerging from the data. The session will unpack some of the key learnings, before opening into a panel discussion reflecting on what these findings could mean for charities and how they might shape future legacy fundraising strategies.

Key Learnings:

– What a strong ‘legacy brand’ means
– How legacy and brand are linked
– How charities are currently bringing the two together

Reaching new legacy audiences: Lessons from BBC Children in Need, Asda and Farewill

Speakers: Cam Renney-Smith, Farewill and Ciaran Mackle, Children in Need

How can charities use corporate partnerships to take legacy giving beyond their existing supporter base?
This session explores how BBC Children in Need, Asda and Farewill brought a free will-writing offer to customers through the Asda Rewards app. We’ll share how the partnership combined the reach of a major retailer, the recognition of a much-loved charity and Farewill’s specialist will-writing journey to create a simple and compliant campaign.

We’ll explore how strong early performance led Asda to amplify the campaign through PR, extending its reach beyond app users, and how the campaign generated £875,000 in estimated future legacy income during a short promotional window.

Combining first-hand perspectives from BBC Children in Need and Farewill, the session will cover what made the model work, the practical considerations involved and what we learned along the way. Drawing on other examples from Farewill’s partnerships, we’ll also explore how charities can identify opportunities to work with trusted brands and adapt the model for different audiences and contexts.

Key Learnings:
– How corporate and brand partnerships can help charities reach new audiences that traditional legacy marketing may not reach
– How to combine the strengths of a charity, corporate partner and will-writing provider to create a trusted, low-friction and compliant customer journey.
– How to identify and develop corporate partnership opportunities, with practical ideas that charities can adapt to their own networks, audiences and resources.

Building a Legacy Supporter Journey: Overcoming the Challenges for Small to Medium Charities
Speaker: Jensen Calleemootoo, Owner, Barefoot Legacy

Small to medium sized charities offer the potential to grow income from gifts in Wills, but often they confront major challenges to develop and deliver a legacy supporter journey. As a result, they miss out on the development of a sustainable income stream. In this session, you’ll learn how Jensen overcame some of these major challenges for some small to medium sized charities over the course of my 20+ years of experience in legacy fundraising.

Key Learnings:
– How to gather the supporter insights to develop a legacy journey?
– How to overcome the major resource obstacles to develop a legacy journey?
– How to persuade your leadership team or Board to invest and scale up a legacy journey?

Intro to Legacy Fundraising
Speaker: Sam Devlin, Director, Sam Devlin Consulting

Legacy giving delivers around a third of fundraised income for the charities that receive it, yet attracts only around 6% of fundraising spend. If you’re new to legacy fundraising, or holding it alongside six other jobs, this session gives you a working foundation in 30 minutes, built around the two questions every legacy fundraiser faces.

First, how do I win investment? I’ll share the strongest arguments from Remember A Charity’s case for investment toolkit: the 15:1 return, the cost of inaction, and how to answer the objections you’ll hear from your CEO, finance director and board.

Second, what do I build with it? Here we’ll leave the traditional funnel behind and look at the journey from inside the supporter’s head, using the Gifts in Wills Decision Map, a behavioural framework grounded in research into how people actually decide. You’ll leave thinking outside in rather than inside out, with three things to do on Monday, whatever your budget. I’ve spent 25 years in legacy fundraising, leading Cancer Research UK’s legacy programme and building audience-led strategies with small and community charities across the UK and Australia.

Key Learnings:
– How to make the case for legacy investment
– How supporters actually decided to leave a gift in a will
– What to do first, whatever your budget. 3 actions any charity can take next Monday without new spend

Offline channel mix: in-memory and legacy marketing
Speaker: Sarah Dodd, Dorothy House

Lessons from It’s In Your Gift and Write Your Own Ending

What happens when a small Legacies team takes on two ambitious legacy campaigns with a modest budget and limited in-house resources? Join us for an honest and practical look behind the scenes of It Is In Your Gift and Write Your Own Ending.

In this session, we’ll share the key learnings, challenges and successes from developing two distinctive legacy campaigns that aimed to engage supporters in meaningful and memorable ways. From strategic planning and creative development to stakeholder buy-in and delivery, we’ll explore what worked, what we’d do differently, and how we maximised impact without the resources of a large national charity.

A key part of our journey was our collaboration with Bath-based creative agency Supple Studios. Together, we developed compelling campaign concepts that reflected our audience, values and ambitions while remaining achievable within tight budget constraints.

Key Learnings:
– Whether you’re part of a small or medium-sized charity, managing stretched resources, or looking to refresh your legacy marketing, this session will offer practical insights, creative inspiration and real-world advice.
– Discover how collaboration, clear objectives and a willingness to think differently can help organisations of any size create legacy campaigns that resonate and deliver results.

How to connect with In-Memory supporters
Speaker: Nikita Gandhi, Legacy and In Memory Manager, Refuge

Conversations about grief can feel daunting, but they don’t have to be. In memory supporters often have a powerful personal connection to your cause, and the way we communicate with them can make a lasting difference to their experience.

This practical session will explore how charities can build meaningful relationships with in memory donors by communicating with empathy, confidence and authenticity. We’ll discuss why fundraisers shouldn’t be afraid to talk about bereavement, how to choose language that acknowledges loss without making assumptions, and how to create supporter journeys that feel personal and compassionate.

Drawing on real examples from across the sector, we’ll examine common mistakes charities make when communicating with in memory supporters, and how to avoid them. Whether you’re new to in memory fundraising or looking to strengthen your supporter engagement, you’ll leave with practical tools and greater confidence to have conversations that supporters genuinely value.

Key Learnings:
– Explore how charities can build meaningful relationships with in memory donors by communicating with empathy, confidence and authenticity
– Discover how to choose language that acknowledges loss without making assumptions

Deciphering the data: The legacy myths costing you your best prospects

Speaker: John Roberts, Dataro

Your best legacy prospects are hiding in plain sight within your own database, but fundraisers consistently struggle to identify them.

Join John Roberts (Head of Region, UK & Europe at Dataro) as he breaks down insights drawn from over 257,000 confirmed legacy donors across 297 organisations, and outlines why traditional recency, frequency, value-based segmentation would have stood very little chance of finding them. The learnings challenge what a “good” legacy prospect has historically looked like, revealing the hidden indicators that actually predict legacy intent.

We’ll also hear directly from The Brain Tumour Charity, which rebuilt its legacy targeting strategy from the ground up. They will share what their process looked like before, why they knew change was necessary, and the real-world results of acting on insights driven by the data.

Key Learnings:
– Why common assumptions about what makes a “good” legacy prospect are actually costing us pledges (backed by data across 257,000+ real legacy donors).
– What the data actually shows predicts legacy giving intent, and why it’s rarely the obvious signal.
– How a real charity (Brain Tumour Charity) rebuilt its legacy targeting process by acting on data insights, including what changed and the resulting outcomes, as a practical before-and-after example attendees can apply to their own programme.

Brand and legacy integration
Speaker: Anna Turner, Legacy Futures

There are many questions in the minds of legacy fundraisers about the relationship between brand and legacy income. While there is growing evidence that the two are linked, much of it is anecdotal or based on individual case studies rather than robust, sector-wide analysis.
In this session, Legacy Futures will share some initial findings from its ground-breaking new research exploring the relationship between brand and legacy giving, revealing some of the key statistical connections emerging from the data.
The session will unpack some of the key learnings, before opening into a panel discussion reflecting on what these findings could mean for charities and how they might shape future legacy fundraising strategies.

Key Learnings:
– What a strong ‘legacy brand’ means
– How legacy and brand are linked
– How charities are currently bringing the two together

Five insights we’ve learned from successful legacy propositions

Speaker: Steven Dodds, Beautiful Insights and Rowena Wyles, Catsnake

Five things Beautiful Insights have discovered from speaking directly to the people that legacy campaigns are built for. We’ll be sharing insights from a variety of campaigns, built alongside charities in partnership with Catsnake: The Story Agency, who we work with on bringing these propositions to life.

Key Learnings:
– Expect moments where testing overturned our own assumptions, and even the client’s initial preference
– Learn about imagery, language and positioning

Creating Meaningful Moments: Using Events to Steward and Engage Legacy Supporters
Speakers: Sanpreet Janjua, Young Sounds UK, Lizzy Steward, Essex Wildlife Trust and Katherine Sayer, ENO

Events can play a powerful role in building lasting relationships with legacy and in-memory supporters, creating meaningful experiences that deepen connection and inspire future giving. In this practical 30-minute panel discussion, hear from experienced legacy and supporter engagement professionals from across the charity sector as they share how they have designed and delivered memorable events that put supporters at the heart of their work.

From intimate stewardship gatherings and recognition events to innovative engagement opportunities, our panelists will explore what makes an event truly impactful, how to balance emotional connection with organisational objectives, and the lessons they’ve learned from years of creating special moments for supporters. Attendees will leave with fresh ideas, practical tips, and real-world examples to help strengthen their own legacy stewardship programmes and supporter journeys.

Perfect for legacy, in-memory, and supporter engagement fundraisers looking to enhance relationships through the power of events.

Key Learnings:
– Things to consider when planning legacy events.
– How to measure success.
– Practical tools for building an event programme.