Legacies and bequests
Please treat this section with respect. For if within these pages you can find out how to increase your share of the massive legacy (more commonly referred to as bequests in North America) income that seems to fall each year from heaven above into fundraisers’ laps, you’ll have done well indeed. So, this is the place where you’ll find some of the best ideas worth borrowing, truly the all-time greats of legacy marketing.
Rhode Island Foundation: why less can be more with the annual report, particularly when it comes to legacies
by SOFII
To send or not to send? If you ask your donors if they want to receive your annual report, why do you think they don’t reply? It could be inertia, ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’. Maybe they think they'll be saving you time and money, they’re nice, considerate people after all. By the same token intertia will stop them going to your website to view your report online – and you will never know. If you send a printed copy, you know they have it and might they not be more likely to look at it, if it’s there in their hands? The stories here from Tom Ahern and the Rhode Island Foundatio show the power of the printed word.
Read moreUniversity of South Carolina: ‘We are South Carolina Y’ALL’ (Young Alumni Leaving a Legacy)
by SOFII
Innovative and engaging alumni fundraising from USC shows the education sector how it should be done.
Read moreAssociation of International Cancer Research: Inspiring Stories Book
by SOFII
By creating real, personal, one-to-one conversations, AICR not only inspired their supporters, they also made them feel as though they really cared.
Read moreYMCA: ‘soft sell’ legacy advertising
by SOFII
In the mid 1980's, the YMCA offered a free legacy information service to generate a list of potential prospects...
Read moreRNLI: the legacy letter
by SOFII
This is a classic example of a direct appeal to supporters, asking for information that will help plan future income. The candid, plain-speaking, respectful copy reminds supporters that RNLI relies heavily on legacies to fund their work. You can read the whole thing here.
Read moreGreat Ormond Street Hospital: legacy marketing 1856
by SOFII
Why is it that the giving and receipt of legacies figured strongly in Victorian literature, yet is largely absent today? The announcement in the annual report of The Hospital for Sick Children (later Great Ormond Street Hospital) appeared just four years after the hospital was founded, but it was already obvious that gifts of legacies would be very important to the health and development of the hospital.
Read moreChildren’s Cancer Institute of Australia: bequest conversion pack
by SOFII
This very detailed exhibit shows clearly how to ask donors and potential donors for the biggest gift they’ll ever make – a legacy. The campaign achieved brilliant results and stands out in the charity sector as an example of good bequest (legacy) marketing. It showed that asking someone for a bequest doesn’t have to be daunting and risky, as long as it is done in a sensitive, respectful manner that offers an emotive and compelling case for support.
Read moreGreenpeace Sweden’s legacy commercials
by SOFII
Colourful cartoon characters present the threats to their environment and set up a conversation about legacies for Greenpeace in Sweden. It’s all about trying new things and taking risks, which too many organisations shy away from. Greenpeace International has developed a structure to make them possible.
Read moreSouthern Poverty Law Center: Partners for the Future legacy letter and brochure
by SOFII
These two items – a single page letter and 16-page booklet, which together constitute a single legacy-promotion direct mail package, represent an outs…
Read moreWWF integrated legacy marketing campaign
by SOFII
This is truly ground-breaking communication for fundraising. Not only did these press advertisements and posters herald a new approach to the promotion of legacies (bequests) but they were also the first ads to use jargon-free language and to talk about legacies in plain, everyday terms that any one could understand.
Read moreThe Greenpeace legacy beer mat
by SOFII
This is the copy line that every writer wishes he or she had written. If half the challenge with legacy marketing is how do you raise this delicate subject with donors, then this brilliant promotion hits every button perfectly. I’ve always believed that the fact it’s an advertisement on a beer mat is almost entirely incidental to its brilliance, though it is characteristic of Greenpeace that this is how they would choose to deploy such a fantastic idea. Without doubt, this is a fundraising classic. NB see also ‘lessons’, below.
Read moreNature Conservancy of Canada: legacy mailing
by SOFII
How NCC accessed the pot of gold at the end of the fundraiser’s rainbow with a classically straightforward but very appealing legacy piece. Without doubt, this carefully and sensitively crafted pack will raise funds very effectively for the cause and the organisation that created it.
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