Let's Talk Fundraising: Rory Brooks CBE on the future of UK philanthropy

Legacy giving is a long-term decision, but the relationships that make it possible are being built right now.

In this month’s Let’s Talk Fundraising, host Tim Beynon is joined by Lucinda Frostick, Director of Remember A Charity, to explore the changing legacy landscape. Tim also speaks to Kay Harrison, Loyalty Action Planner at About Loyalty, and Vix Friar, Head of Supporter Services at Air Ambulance Kent, Surrey and Sussex (KSS), about what makes supporters stay connected to a cause – and why the everyday experience charities create can have an impact long into the future.

Legacy giving is already worth around £4.5 billion a year to UK charities, while around 22% of people now leave a charitable gift in their will. But perhaps the more useful question for fundraisers isn’t how to secure more legacy gifts. It’s how to build the kind of supporter relationships that people want to continue.

Legacy fundraising starts long before the legacy conversation

One of the strongest ideas from the episode is that legacy shouldn’t be treated as a separate fundraising product.

Kay describes this as “all roads lead to legacy”. A supporter might first encounter a charity through an event, regular gift, raffle, campaign or personal experience. What matters is what happens to that relationship afterwards.

About Loyalty’s research demonstrates why. Across different forms of giving, people who had stopped actively supporting a charity were often more likely to leave a gift in their will than active supporters.

It challenges the idea that a supporter who stops giving is necessarily a supporter who has stopped caring.

“There’s so much more to the supporter experience than just making those financial asks,” Kay said.

For fundraisers, that means looking beyond individual transactions. Continuing to share impact, offer ways to engage and make supporters feel part of the cause can matter even when somebody is no longer giving financially.

The case for communications that don’t ask

This long-term approach can be difficult when fundraising teams are under pressure to demonstrate immediate return on investment.

Vix shared how KSS has invested in supporter communications that don’t always come with an ask, including sending 14,000 handwritten thank-you cards.

One supporter replied with her own thank-you card and a £10,000 cheque, thanking the charity for thanking her.

The lesson isn’t that every thank-you card generates a donation. It’s that stewardship has value even when that value can’t be immediately measured in income.

Legacy fundraising makes that particularly clear. The return on a positive supporter experience might not appear next month or even next year. It can be the cumulative result of years of feeling valued, informed and connected.

Kay’s research identifies three important drivers of that loyalty: commitment, satisfaction and trust.

Commitment comes from a shared sense of purpose. Satisfaction comes from listening to supporters and treating them well. Trust comes from integrity, transparency and doing what you say you will do.

Those aren’t simply legacy fundraising principles. They are the foundations of good supporter relationships.

Know why people care

The starting point is understanding what brought somebody to the cause in the first place.

Kay calls this the “spark” – the personal motivation that creates a connection between supporter and charity. It might come from lived experience, local connection, shared values or simply believing strongly in what an organisation is trying to achieve.

For KSS, those motivations can be particularly powerful. Some supporters give because the air ambulance has helped them or somebody they love. Others give because they want to know the service will be there if their family or community ever needs it.

Vix describes those motivations simply as “thank you” and “please”.

Fundraisers can’t assume they know which motivation matters to somebody. They have to listen.

Surveys and data can help, but so can conversations, feedback and giving people opportunities to tell you why they support your work. Understanding that motivation gives charities something far more useful than another segment in a database: it gives them the foundations for a relationship.

Make legacy giving visible, not inevitable

Good legacy fundraising also means giving people the opportunity to consider a gift without assuming they want to make one.

Kay’s research found that some supporters who hadn’t considered leaving a gift simply “didn’t know that was an option” or said it “didn’t occur to me”.

Lucinda highlighted the same challenge. People naturally want to look after their loved ones first, while writing a will can involve difficult decisions and competing priorities. A charitable gift can simply slip someone’s mind.

The role of the fundraiser isn’t to push the decision. It is to make sure people know the option exists.

That could be through a website, donation form, supporter magazine, email or conversation. And it doesn’t need to begin only when somebody reaches a particular age.

Younger people are less likely to have written a will, but Lucinda explained that among those who have, younger generations show a strong propensity to include charities. Building awareness earlier can help make charitable gifts a natural part of how people think about their wills in future.

Playing the long game

For charities under financial pressure, investing in something that may take years to produce income isn't always an easy case to make.

But that is also what makes legacy fundraising an important reminder about the value of long-term thinking.

A supporter who stops donating isn't necessarily lost. A communication without an ask isn't necessarily unproductive. And someone who has pledged a legacy isn't someone a charity should stop talking to for fear that they might change their mind.

As Vix puts it, “With legacy, you have the privilege of getting to know these people.”

For charities starting out, that doesn’t require a sophisticated legacy programme. Kay’s advice is to start with the touchpoints already available – a message on a donation form, information on a website or a conversation when it feels appropriate.

Legacy fundraising ultimately asks charities to think beyond the next gift and towards the lifetime of the relationship.

If “all roads lead to legacy”, those roads are built from thousands of smaller interactions: stories shared, preferences respected, questions answered, impact demonstrated and, sometimes, a handwritten thank you.