Last chance to change the world: legacies (bequests) showcase

Greenpeace Sweden’s legacy commercials

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.

University of Oxford: legacy brochure

The dream inspires. A classic legacy promotion brochure with multiple enclosures shows you how it’s done. By providing an inspiring vision in the main document as well as individualised content in the template insert, this brochure has the ability to be as broad or as narrow as required.

YMCA ‘soft sell’ legacy advertising

In the mid 1980's, the YMCA offered a free legacy information service to generate a list of potential prospects...

Nature Conservancy of Canada: legacy mailing

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.

Children’s Cancer Institute of Australia: bequest conversion pack

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.

Great Ormond Street Hospital: legacy marketing 1856

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.

The RNLI legacy letter

This letter raised £millions. It is a classic example of a direct appeal to supporters for information to help plan for future income. An example of a candid, plain-speaking, respectful letter to remind supporters that RNLI relies heavily on legacy income to fund their work.

Dogs Trust canine care card

This light-hearted approach from the Dogs Trust belies what is a hugely succesful and appropriate fundraising proposition. So, does humour really not work in fundraising? This exhibit suggests otherwise.

The Greenpeace legacy beer mat

Smile at the audacity behind this amusing approach, but did it work? Would we all be a bit more successful at raising money from legacies if we took a leaf or two out of Greenpeace’s book?

WWF integrated legacy marketing campaign

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.

Legacy related reading

NSPCC – a new approach to legacy training

Innovative angles on the fundraiser’s ‘pot of gold’, by Jacqueline Gunn, NSPCC legacy marketing fundraiser and Victoria Stephenson, NSPCC development manager.
Read this article.

Legacy marketing materials

A quick collection of newsletters, pamphlets and other materials that legacy fundraisers have been kind enough to share with SOFII.
Our current list of materials:

Association of International Cancer Research: Inspiring Stories Book.

By creating real, personal, one-to-one conversations, AICR not only inspired their supporters, they also made them feel as though they really cared.

LA Gay and Lesbian Center – legacy leadership campaign.

Do you wonder if there isn’t something more you should be doing to encourage legacy donations? The LA Gay and Lesbian Centre did and went about creating a really exceptional legacy programme, combining the best of direct mail and telephone marketing with sensitive cultivation and stewardship techniques. With a detailed account of their six-phase strategy and a comprehensive set of results, this exhibit has everything you need to follow their shining example and secure your own successful legacy programme.

AARP – formerly the American Association of Retired Persons: legacies booklet and newsletter

This booklet and newsletter were the centerpiece of a direct marketing legacy promotion programme. Given the huge size of the AARP membership and the substantial range of interests and abilities, Mal Warwick Associates opted to organise the multi-faceted legacy programme illustrated in these materials.

Please note: This exhibit is "under construction"

Bread for the World, Legacy of Hope: 4-page newsletter plus reply form

This direct mail package enclosed a newsletter for the Bread for the World ‘Legacy of Hope’ giving society, which has raised millions of dollars in bequests to support the organisation’s work. 

Please note: this exhibit is "under construction".

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

Three simple yet direct black and white legacy advertisements from the archives of RSPB, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. This exhibit is "under construction" (if you have any information about these ads please let us know).

A missão “porta-copos de cerveja” do Greenpeace

Sorria para a ousadia por trás dessa abordagem divertida, mas isso funciona? Todos nós seríamos um pouco mais bem sucedidos em captar dinheiro por campanhas ligadas com heranças se pegássemos uma folha ou duas do livro do Greenpeace?

University of South Carolina: search for ‘the face of Y’ALL’

Y’ALL stands for Young Alumni Leaving a Legacy and this exhibit chronicles an associated endeavour, the search for a face, or rather a couple of faces, to promote it.

The Good Will Guide from Catholic Children’s Society, UK

This is very helpful information from the Catholic Children’s Society because it really does make a potentially very complex process quite simple. The asset and liability calculator is particularly useful. It should be read in conjunction with CCS’s guide to making a will, which covers the practicalities of will-making and includes a glossary of terms.

Living Legacy Society newsletter, from the Union of Concerned Scientists, USA

This newsletter represents the culmination of nearly a decade of successful direct marketing efforts by Mal Warwick Associates and the staff of the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

University of Michigan, USA. Newsletter, plus reply form

We at SOFII also liked the simple graphic presentation of different giving plans that are shown in this newsletter (option 1, the maize plan and option 2, the blue plan). Donors don’t automatically understand the implications of their giving, particularly when there are tax advantages. If these can be simply rendered in graphic form, then donors will be encouraged and fundraisers will benefit.

Voices for Justice newsletter, from Human Rights Watch, USA

This package is an excellent example of a legacy society newsletter, with its special focus on the mission-based activities that constitute true donor motivation.View this exhibit.

Legacy of Hope newsletter and reply form, from Bread for the World, USA

This direct mail package enclosed a newsletter for the Bread for the World ‘Legacy of Hope’ giving society, which has raised millions of dollars in bequests to support the organisation’s work.

Partners for the Future legacy letter and brochure, from Southern Poverty Law Center, Montgomery, Alabama, USA

These two items – a single page letter and 16-page booklet which together constitute a single legacy-promotion direct mail package – represent an outstanding effort in legacy marketing by one of the leading practitioners of the direct marketing art in the USA. 

The Harry Secombe soft sell legacy approach

This campaign dates back to the late 1980s and was created by Burnett Associates Limited with Dennis Kingshot at the NSPCC. 

University of South Carolina: ‘We are South Carolina Y’ALL’ (Young Alumni Leaving a Legacy)

Innovative and engaging alumni fundraising from USC shows the education sector how it should be done.

The Rhode Island Foundation’s annual report and legacy

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.

Southern Poverty Law Center: Partners for the Future legacy letter and brochure

These two items – a single page letter and 16-page booklet which together constitute a single legacy-promotion direct mail package – represent an outstanding effort in legacy marketing by one of the leading practitioners of the direct marketing art in the USA, the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The NSPCC legacies TV ad: the ‘what will we leave?’ campaign

This campaign is a first for legacy fundraising in the UK. The NSPCC were able to create a positive, happy and colourful campaign; creating ‘talkability’ around the difficult subject of legacies.