Understanding the cost of legacy fundraising

Ashley Rowthorn, CEO and Kath Horsley, Senior Consultant at Legacy Futures join the Today's Wills and Probate podcast to discuss their latest piece of research on the investment charities make in their marketing.
The Legacy Marketing Benchmarks report provides insight into

1. helping charities understand what legacy marketing is
2. enable charities to benchmark their spend
3. helping charities make a business case for securing investment into legacy marketing

Legacy Futures is on a mission to help charities grow their legacy gifting. In the last year around £4bn was donated to charity through wills; a figure which has quadrupled since the 1990s. And the number of charities benefitting continues to grow, with c. 10,000 the beneficiary of legacy gifting last year.
Ashley and Kath highlight the critical role practitioners play in encouraging people to write charity gifts into their wills. The report itself asks charities

1. how much are you spending on legacy marketing
2. how many people are involved
3. what channels are you investing in

recognising legacy gifting marketing is difficult to quantify, often because of the time between writing a final will, and death (c. 7 years). Legacy Benchmarking also looks at the conversion rate between pledges and money being left to charity and helps charities to understand which channels are most effective and offer the highest return on investment.
Ashley is keen to debunk any moral dilemma for charities spending money on marketing; it is a key part of their outreach and done well, yields many more commitments of support.
Legacy marketing spend has grown and now accounts for 6.2% of total fundraising spend, up significant from 5 years ago when it was 3.7%. But with legacies accounting for 42% of total fundraising, charities must continue to invest in it to maintain and grow their fundraising.
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