Legacy donors say they are aiming for ‘symbolic immortality’
Howard Lake | 24 August 2014 | News
Many people who leave legacies to charity do so as a way of extending their identity into the future.
In-depth interviews with 20 legators to a large British charity – conducted by legacy consultant Dr Clare Routley and Adrian Sargeant of Plymouth University’s Centre for Sustainable Philanthropy – found that interviewees considered their estate as “an extension of the self”.
When people die, they aim to “strategically dispose” of their estate to achieve “generativity” – extending the self forward in time by using their bequests to provide “symbolic immortality”.
Routely and Sargeant say the research – published online in the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly – contrasts with a lot of previous research on disposition of estates. This has found that individuals have aimed to physically preserve their assets.
However, charity legators aim to “symbolically preserve” assets by having them spent on “making a significant impact on charitable beneficiaries”.
They add: “Through a bequest gift to a charity, the donor can extend particular aspects of his or her self forward in time, making a statement about the experiences and people that shaped him or her, and the values that he or she holds.”
This has implications for charity legacy marketers, who should demonstrate how a bequest gift can make a difference by showing how previous legacies have been used to achieve an impact.
One suggestion made in the paper is to offer bequest supporters community membership of a “bequest society”. And marketing messages, while stressing the importance that individual bequests have, could also show how they collectively make an impact.
Photo: Legacy by Marekuliasz on Shutterstock.com
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.