League table shows legacy consideration has risen 5% in a year
Melanie May | 16 November 2021 | News
Legacy consideration among charity supporters has risen 5% in the past year, according to fastmap and Freestyle Marketing’s latest Legacy Potential Premier League Table.
This year saw fastmap and Freesyle Marketing interview around 5,000 charity supporters aged 50+ for the league table, asking them a raft of questions relating to legacy giving and how likely they are to leave a gift in their will, to provide a snapshot of how people currently feel. The report also looks at trends based on previous years’ results.
It found that four out of ten people say they would leave a charitable legacy, although this rises among some audiences.
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Charities are ranked on their supporters’ propensity to leave a gift in their will to them with pet charities particularly popular, taking eight of the top ten places. Battersea Dogs & Cats Home top the league, followed by The Donkey Sanctuary, Cats Protection, Dogs Trust, and Prostate Cancer UK. The only other non-animal related charity in the top 10 is Alzheimer’s Research UK.
According to fastmap’s data, there has been some movement at the top however, with Dog’s Trust moving down from the top spot. The top four have maintained their pull away from their close competitors first seen in last year’s research, but the gap between 1st place and 30th in the table has narrowed back to the sort of levels seen pre-pandemic.
Other notable shifts are Cancer Research UK, which moves down from 5th place in 2019 to 8th in 2020 and now 12th in 2021. RNIB and Teenage Cancer Trust are new entrants.
David Cole, fastmap Managing Director, said:
“Whilst this year’s legacy revenue is largely as a result of marketing undertaken years ago, legacy consideration as reported in this league table is a window into the future. It measures the proportion of your supporters who are considering leaving a gift in their will to you regardless of the size of the charity.
“Animal charities have maintained their dominance but there is also a downwards drift for the larger charities such as CRUK, Macmillan, RSPCA, and BHF who all move down the table with some now in danger of existing altogether.
“The intense competition of legacy fundraising is often overlooked as potential legators generally select far fewer charities to leave a gift in their will to compared with those they support in their life. If charities are to maintain their competitive edge they need to clearly understand who they are competing against and their relative strengths and weaknesses. “
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.