Transcript

[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] Jade Cunnah: Welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. Your go-to place for fundraising tips and inspiration. Love what you hear. Get more insights straight to your inbox. Subscribe to our email list for exclusive fundraising resources, early access to training, special discounts, and more. Just head on over to fundraising everwhere.com/podcast to subscribe Now onto today’s episode, enjoy.

[00:01:01] Lucy Lowthian: Well, hello everyone. I am Lucy Ian, and I’m a Senior Legacy Consultant at Legacy Voice, which is part of Legacy Futures, and I’m here today to talk about how to develop an effective legacy strategy. So thank you all for joining me today. You may have already written a strategy before or been involved in implementing one, but my main name today is to ensure that you go away feeling confident that you can create a legacy strategy and that you understand what some of the core elements are.

[00:01:29] Lucy Lowthian: Gifts and wills are obviously such a vital income stream for many charities, so having an effective strategy is crucial in order to maximize legacy income. But when we start to develop our legacy strategy, Adrian Sargent and Elaine Jay’s planning framework is a really good example of the different stages involved in a strategic plan.

[00:01:50] Lucy Lowthian: Most charities take the time to plan their fundraising activities, um, including legacy activities obviously, and that. That they will undertake throughout the year. And according to Sergeant and Jay, there are three core dimensions of a fundraising or strategic plan. So the first is, where are we now? So this usually involves a complete review of the organization’s environment and the past performance of the legacy function.

[00:02:14] Lucy Lowthian: So in this case, it is obviously legacies. The charity needs a complete understanding of its current strategic position in the donor markets. It serves to be able to set effective and realistic objectives for the future. But secondly, we want to, um, look at where do we want to be. So this is when the organization will map out what the legacy department is expected to achieve over the duration of the plan, and set out those clear objectives.

[00:02:39] Lucy Lowthian: And then the third stage is how are we going to get there? So this stage of the plan contains the schedule and the tactics that the organization will adopt to achieve its targets. The tactics contain the detail of how the, um, legacy fundraising will actually be undertaken. So the audit is, um, what helps with the first dimension to establish where the organization is now.

[00:03:03] Lucy Lowthian: The audit explores the macro environment in which a charity is operating, and it analyzes peer activity, the legacy marketplace, and the internal environment of the organization. And it concludes with a SWOT analysis. So summarizing strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats. So the audit, like I say, starts with the macro environment and we work from the outside in, starting with the bigger picture and moving to the internal environment, which we then pull together into a swot.

[00:03:35] Lucy Lowthian: So if you get the audit right at the start of the strategy process, everything else should hopefully flow quite easily from this. So I’m going to focus quite a lot of this session on the actual audit. So the macro environment has an effect on what we do, but it’s something that we can’t control. And like any other organizations, charities are susceptible to external factors.

[00:03:56] Lucy Lowthian: And when it comes to legacies, understanding the external environment is incredibly important, as many, many of these external factors can impact on future legacy income. And you might have come across the pest tool before, but if not, this is a tool that we could use to examine the wider external influences that might have an impact.

[00:04:17] Lucy Lowthian: This covers four areas, which are political, economical, social, and technological. And the slide on screen shows some examples of of each of these. By conducting a pest analysis. Fundamentally, we want to understand what are the key trends and what does this mean for me, and as an example, in the legacy context, if we consider political, there has been a backlog in issuing grants of probate.

[00:04:43] Lucy Lowthian: This has therefore had an impact until the shortfall in bequest has been recovered. Therefore the challenge for legacy managers is to deal with the peaks and troughs in workload that this situation brings, and to manage the increasing caseload as the situation resolves. There are also, um, a number of contentious cases.

[00:05:02] Lucy Lowthian: These are rising every year, so this is something charities need to be aware of, especially with the changes in will writing, such as an increase in online wills. But moving to economics, so legacy income is set to reach 10 billion by 2050. This is due to a rising death rate combined with wealthier, more charitably minded donors.

[00:05:23] Lucy Lowthian: So they, this is what is going to drive this growth. So there’s huge opportunity there. And if we look at social, around 11 million people in the UK are aged over 65, and this is set to. Almost double by 2050. And the passing of this older generation will result in around 5.5 trillion pounds transferring between generations over the next 30 years in the uk.

[00:05:48] Lucy Lowthian: And as families become more complex, we’ll making will be increasingly important. And that’s again, something that charities need to consider and communicate. And if we consider technological, all generations, you know, including baby boomers, are now online for longer periods. Digital will therefore play an increasingly important role in legacy strategies moving forward, both in terms of legacy donor recruitment and retention.

[00:06:14] Lucy Lowthian: And it’s also sensible to include an online element where free will making is offered. So the next stage of the audit involves a peer review, and some sectors might consider this a competitor review, but I think in fundraising we see this more as a learning exercise. So we’re learning from our peers.

[00:06:35] Lucy Lowthian: And if we consider the first point on screen, so the who, we really do want to think about what we can learn from the individual charity when deciding upon peers to review. So for example, what are they doing well in the legacy space? Why, for example, might their legacy giving have been increasing in the last few years?

[00:06:54] Lucy Lowthian: And we might look at other similar charities working in the sector. So this could be those working in a similar cause area. Of a similar size or working in the same geographical location. Or we might choose charities that are often alongside the charity in a will, so our co beneficiaries. But it’s about deciding who would be the most relevant charities to include in the peer review, and you can then start to delve into their legacy programs.

[00:07:20] Lucy Lowthian: So. It’s not only important to look at what activity they’ve been doing, but you want to know if that activity actually receives or achieves results. Should I say? And this isn’t any point in, sorry. There isn’t any point in trying to understand best practice if campaigns aren’t generating results, for example.

[00:07:37] Lucy Lowthian: You can then start to identify some of the reasons why things have been successful and start to unpick the charity strategy and tactics and questions might include things like, you know, has their legacy income been growing? Do they invest in legacy marketing? Do they run an annual campaign? Do they undertake digital legacy fundraising activity?

[00:07:57] Lucy Lowthian: Do they have an effective stewardship and recognition program in place? So you are looking at all of these different factors to try and really build up a picture of what’s, um, working well for them. And you can then bring all of your findings together to identify common themes across the peers and understand what this means for your charity when developing your own legacy strategy, and what opportunities exist to enhance your own legacy program.

[00:08:23] Lucy Lowthian: Based on this sector, best practice. So you might find common themes with regards to marketing approaches and stewardship activities or around their levels of investment and products. And when you conduct a peer review, you can find lots of useful information from sources such as the NCVO and Charity Commission.

[00:08:42] Lucy Lowthian: There’s annual reports, the charity’s website and job descriptions even. But speaking to people who work there or communications that you might have received personally from the charity. But when conducting the review, just try to consider both their acquisition and stewardship activities. And this section of the audit considers the overarching trends in the market and their relevance to legacy giving before exploring who leaves legacies and why, and trends in legacy fundraising.

[00:09:14] Lucy Lowthian: So we can start by looking at who your market audience is. So for example, if you are a university, it might be your alumni aged 50 and over, and you can use your internal data to gain insights into what you know about your existing supporters. For example, charities might look back at their previous legacy gifts considering similar characteristics and demographics of their.

[00:09:39] Lucy Lowthian: Charities can also consider their legacy supporters relationship with the organization. So for example, um, previous ator and existing inquiries and pledge and pledges. So are they regular donors? Do they attend events? Have they used your services? So you can really start to build up a picture and see if there are any common analysis amongst legacy supporters and their relationship with you.

[00:10:01] Lucy Lowthian: And you will probably find that those who are your most loyal supporters are your best legacy prospects. Identifying the average legacy donor is a good starting point for identifying future legacy prospects and charities can then use these insights alongside what we know from external research, such as typical legacy support profiles and what we know about the different generations, including baby boomers and what motivates them to give to.

[00:10:27] Lucy Lowthian: I identify potential legacy supporters. You can then start to understand more about who they are and what interests them and why they would support you and where you can find them, and so on. And there were reports from Mintel Legacy Foresights, me and Ford. You know, they’re all useful starting points as well as online information tools such as ACON and Mosaic.

[00:10:50] Lucy Lowthian: It’s then important to identify key trends in wider consumer behavior. So for example, these might be to do with technology and consumer experience and individual identity. Looking at these trends and looking at what they mean for legacies. So for example, I. Technologies advancing all the time, and charities are increasingly embracing digital channels and offering virtual experiences, and they’re also starting to use tools such as AI to help with data analysis and copywriting.

[00:11:20] Lucy Lowthian: So it’s really about identifying opportunities that will enable growth in legacies. One of the final stages of an audit is about conducting internal analysis, so the aim here is to look at past performance and also current performance, including the structure and support systems that underpin your legacy activity.

[00:11:44] Lucy Lowthian: The main objective is to appraise what’s worked well or not so well. So in order to put the most effective systems and processes in place to support the Legacy program. Data can be gathered through a mixture of desk research and meetings and interviews with staff, but one of the most useful tools to help you do this in analysis is what we call the five Ms.

[00:12:09] Lucy Lowthian: And it’s probably most useful for me to run through some of the points that you can consider under each of the headings. So for example, if we take money, can you provide a breakdown of your legacy income, for example, of the last five or 10 years? Is it increasing or decreasing? And do you have a breakdown of legacy expenditure?

[00:12:26] Lucy Lowthian: So are you investing enough in your legacy program? How many requests do you receive each year? Are numbers, again, going up or down? And what is the split between pecuniary and Reid requests and what are their average values? And if we move on to men, so how many people work in the legacy team and what are their roles?

[00:12:47] Lucy Lowthian: Do you have the right structure and staff resource? And what, oh, sorry. Where does Legacies, and that’s both marketing and administration, sit within your organization, do your legacy programs and plans have senior and um, trustee support our wider staff and volunteers supportive of legacies. And have they received any legacy training?

[00:13:08] Lucy Lowthian: Then moving on to machines. So what databases and systems do you use to store legacy data? So that’s both supporter and financial. Are there any other databases and systems which hold additional supporter data? For example, you might have a separate one for volunteers. Are there other systems working well or have you identified any issues?

[00:13:29] Lucy Lowthian: And then minutes. So this is really around your legacy processes and procedures. You know, do you have these in place? So for example, administration, procedures, data capture, data protection, et cetera. And the final one is mission. So is there an organizational case for support? And do you have a legacy, vision and mission statement that sits underneath this?

[00:13:52] Lucy Lowthian: Do you have a compelling legacy proposition and key messaging to really inspire people to leave a gift to your charity and their will? So you’ve now gathered all the internal and external data that you need, which you can pull together into a swot, and this is a common tool available to charities, which helps to identify the charity strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities and threats.

[00:14:19] Lucy Lowthian: Strengths and weaknesses are internal to the charity and a charity. Strengths and weaknesses can provide the charity with a real advantage or potentially hold it back from grasping. These new opportunities and the opportunities and threats relate to the external environment and include factors that can can impact on the charity’s work both now and in the future.

[00:14:42] Lucy Lowthian: So for example, if we think about strengths, you really want to think about what the charity’s doing well and think about your internal resources. So what qualities set you apart from competitors and is there high awareness of the charity, for example, and with weaknesses? Are there weaknesses such as internal support or lack of resources and, and not the right structure?

[00:15:04] Lucy Lowthian: So what barriers are there to any future development and with opportunities, you know, are there new fundraising products and techniques to test? Are there opportunities to attract new audiences? And threats. Are there any current or future economic, legislative or political changes that will impact on the charity’s work?

[00:15:24] Lucy Lowthian: So these are just some of the things that you want to consider when building your swot, and we can then use this information to conduct what we call a SWOT matching exercise. So, for example, the best place to start is by matching your opportunities and strengths. And we call this the match magic box.

[00:15:45] Lucy Lowthian: And that’s because you’re using your strengths to really take advantage of opportunities. But you can also use your strengths to try avoid threats, for example. Or can you overcome a weakness to try avoid a threat as well. So looking at the strength and opportunity example on screen, you might decide to introduce a will making scheme that you.

[00:16:04] Lucy Lowthian: Contact your committed supporters about to encourage them to consider leaving the charity a gift in their will. Or if we take the weakness of a lack of legacy supporter journeys, we might decide to focus on ensuring we provide an amazing supporter experience in order to retain more supporters in a very competitive environment.

[00:16:28] Lucy Lowthian: So once you’ve completed the audit and you understand where the organization is currently and the external environment in which you are working, you can then start to develop your overarching vision, mission, objectives, and strategic pillars. A great way to do this is by organizing a strategy workshop so you could bring together key people from within the charity so everybody can contribute to the legacy strategy.

[00:16:54] Lucy Lowthian: And this also really helps with buy-in because people feel more involved and invested in the plans. I. So for example, you might want to include your CEO or fundraising director, trustees, your marketing and comms team, and so on. So think about who will be most useful when it comes to supporting the legacy program, and you can then start by agreeing what the overarching legacy vision is.

[00:17:18] Lucy Lowthian: The vision should be an image of the future you want to create or aspire to create, and it should be an inspirational, memorable, and concise statement which describes the world as you believe it should be. The legacy mission statement says What will be accomplished in pursuit of this vision, so it should be action focused and state clearly what you’re going to do.

[00:17:41] Lucy Lowthian: The charity can then move on to setting objectives, which keeps us focused so we know what is required and what is likely to be achieved. And objectives are usually formed based on previous performance trends and market research, and they should be linked to the overall fundraising strategy. And you may have heard of the term smart objectives, which are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and.

[00:18:11] Lucy Lowthian: Smart objectives help charities to set realistic and meaningful goals that they can deliver on. Objectives must therefore be measurable so the fundraising team knows if they’ve been achieved and therefore successful in their legacy plans. So as an example, an objective wouldn’t simply be to increase our legacy supporter base, but it might be to recruit 50 people with an interesting legacy giving in the next year, or to have.

[00:18:38] Lucy Lowthian: 200 direct legacy conversations each year. So they really do have to be, um, very measurable in terms of the, what you set yourself, um, targets to do. And it’s useful to break down legacy supporters by segment, and we can’t can consider geographical, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral factors to start to really build up a picture.

[00:19:01] Lucy Lowthian: Charities might want to target new audience segments, for example, if they’re seeking to expand their audience base, or they will define their segments based on the profiling of their existing donors. And as charities, um, might find their legacy donor profiles look very different. It really is worth charities looking back at their previous legacy gifts and looking at the characteristics of their legacy, that can be really useful.

[00:19:27] Lucy Lowthian: And as mentioned earlier, charities should also consider their current legacy prospects and pledges to really identify any commonalities and to understand more about their relationship with the charity. Charities might also want to be creative and try to bring to life their donor personas with identities and visuals and having donor personas can be incredibly useful for all teams working for the charity when it comes to their legacy plans.

[00:19:54] Lucy Lowthian: Identifying the leg average legacy donor is a really good starting point, as mentioned before for identifying future legacy prospects and it will assist greatly when targeting them so you can work out the best communication and the channel. This will be communicated through to reach them. And depending on the level of segmentation you require, you might decide to use a relatively simple behavioral segmentation model that starts with your warmest audiences in the first instance, such as volunteers and trustees moving outwards to those colder audiences.

[00:20:32] Lucy Lowthian: And then we move on to strategic pillars. So the term strategic pillars describes the critical areas of focus that will help the charity achieve its objectives. So whilst there is no one size fits all approach to defining strategic pillars by clearly defining the pillars, a charity can ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals, and that every decision supports the overall strategy.

[00:20:58] Lucy Lowthian: They also help to determine which activities to focus on, but a charity does, um, need to be careful not to have too many strategic pillars because they need to be distinct and retain that focus. So the table on screen just shows some example pillars along, um, that top row and as an example, these might be related to things like marketing, activity, stewardship, and internal awareness and training.

[00:21:24] Lucy Lowthian: Once a charity is defined, its strategic pillars, the tactics, then sit below each pillar. And tactics are really the specific actions that need to be performed over the next few years to help achieve the objectives. And again, this is when a workshop can be incredibly useful to encourage people to really brainstorm what some of the different tactics might be.

[00:21:48] Lucy Lowthian: And when deciding upon tactics, um, keep returning to the objectives and the audit results to ensure the tactics are relevant and you can think about the trends and best practice that you’ve identified through the audit and peer review. And it’s important to be realistic as well when it comes to time and resource.

[00:22:08] Lucy Lowthian: Tactics can include a number of activities such as acquisition and stewardship, internal awareness, raising events and campaigns, developing processes and designing materials. And it’s also important to think about channels and how best to actually reach your target audiences.

[00:22:29] Lucy Lowthian: Scan charts are a useful tool when creating schedules to visually represent that plan over time, so you can decide when your activities will take place and who will be responsible for these. And you can also split this into, for example, years one, two, and three, and break this down further by month and quarter and so on.

[00:22:50] Lucy Lowthian: And the schedule needs to be continually mo monitored to ensure plans are being delivered on time and to amend this when necessary. And a key aspect of any fundraising strategy or plan is the budget. And the NCVO states your budget needs to be a translation of your plan into financial terms. So you should not be able to write one without the other.

[00:23:17] Lucy Lowthian: So they suggest the budgeting thought process should emulate the diagram on screen. So we need to plan what we want to do and then. Decide if we can afford to deliver it once we’ve considered things such as our resources and the costs of things. And a simple way to compile a budget is by using a spreadsheet and listing each item, including the detail and breaking down the income and expenditure of each.

[00:23:46] Lucy Lowthian: You can then work out the return on investment RA ratio, and if the income outweighs the expenditure, which hopefully it does. Budgets are an estimate because there is obviously no way of knowing for sure exactly what the numbers will be. They are based on previous evidence and almost like a best guest a guess approach.

[00:24:06] Lucy Lowthian: And despite an element of guesswork, creating a budget will help to establish the amount of investment needed in order to achieve the desired outcomes. Budgets should be continually monitored to check if income and expenditure is tracking as predicted, or if they’re up and down and plans might need to check accordingly.

[00:24:26] Lucy Lowthian: But monitoring the budget provides the team with a realistic overview of where the plan is and what they can expect the financial outcomes to be.

[00:24:38] Lucy Lowthian: Finally, um, you need to decide on the metrics and KPIs that will be used to monitor and assess the ongoing success of the legacy program and measure performance against objectives. As an example, we can start at the top of the funnel by monitoring the charity’s overall reach and the number of legacy conversations you’re having before moving down to monitor the number of considers and pledges.

[00:25:05] Lucy Lowthian: And then finally, we need to monitor the number of actual gifts being received by the charity so we can ensure the legacy program is effective. But when deciding upon metrics and KPIs. You need to decide who will measure it and how and where will it be, measure, measured, and how often. And ultimately, you want to know what went wrong and what went right and why.

[00:25:30] Lucy Lowthian: So thank you all so much for joining me today, and I hope you found this session useful, but please don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like more information following this session. 

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