Legacy consideration drops 3% but 1 in 4 still planning a gift in their will
Melanie May | 7 November 2022 | News
The threat of global recession and economic uncertainty are starting to have an impact on legacy consideration, with legacy consideration falling in the past year, according to the latest Legacy Potential Premier League Table from fastmap and Freestyle Marketing.
The Legacy Potential Premier League 2022-2023 saw fastmap and Freestyle Marketing interview around 5000 charity supporters aged 50+, asking them a raft of questions relating to legacy giving, with the total study now numbering 30,000 supporters.
It ranks charities on their supporter’s propensity to leave a gift in their will to them, and looks at the barriers and motivations, how an individual charity’s consideration has changed since last year, how often supporters reject that charity for legacy consideration, and the number of supporters overall that each charity has.
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This year, the study found that 1 in 4 people plan to leave a gift in their will to charity, with 37% considering compared to 40% in last year’s study. This is a drop of 3%.
Animal charities remain the most popular, taking 7 out 10 of the top spots. However, this is slightly less pronounced than last year with the return to the top 10 of Cancer Research UK and the qualification of UNICEF into the league.
This year however, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home has been replaced as a the “nations favourite” by Cats Protection, with Dogs Trust and Battersea Dogs & Cats Home taking 2nd and 3rd place respectively. The top 5 is completed by Donkey Sanctuary in 4th place, and PDSA in 5th.
There are three charities in the top 10 that are outside of the animal sector: UNICEF, which has leapt in from outside the top 30, Cancer Research UK, which has replaced Prostate Cancer UK (now down at 22nd) and Alzheimer’s Research UK (moving down to 9th from 7th).
Other notable shifts are local Hospices, Woodland Trust and RNIB, which have all dropped
out of the top 30, replaced by UNICEF, St John’s Ambulance and RSPB.
The study notes:
“Our research shows that the threat of global recession and economic uncertainty are starting to have an impact on legacy consideration, with a fall from 40% to 37% amongst supporters. However, legacy fundraising is still full of potential and our research digs deeper into bespoke audiences identifying groups where consideration for your cause is higher.
“While the top 3 have maintained some of the pull away from their close competitors which we first saw a couple of years ago, the gap between 1st and 30th shows that legacy consideration is improving across a wide range of charities.”
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.