Taking a blended approach to legacies and lifetime giving
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A blended approach reshapes the way we think about philanthropy, offering a more cohesive and supporter-centric experience to lifetime and legacy giving. This can be particularly powerful for engaging and maximising support from high net worth supporters. But what does that look like in practice and how can charities implement a blended approach?
That’s what we set out to explore in our recent Remember A Charity webinar. In this blog, we summarise the key points of the discussion and signpost some useful resources.
Special thanks go to our expert speakers for sharing their insights: Caroline Donald, Senior Supporter Engagement Manager (Gifts in Wills) at Unicef UK, Aneliese Chapman, Senior Philanthropy Manager at Cancer Research UK, and Rosie O’Connor, Strategic Lead Planned Giving - Legacy & In Memory at VSO.
What is Blended Giving and why adopt this approach?
While the term ‘blended gift’ can be used to describe gift products or strategies that combine lifetime and legacy giving, a blended approach is simply one that puts supporters at the heart of their philanthropic journey. It’s about moving beyond fundraising siloes and taking a more flexible approach, exploring how we can help supporters make the greatest difference across their lifetime and beyond.
While there’s no reason a blended approach couldn’t benefit all supporters, here we focus on the high value legacy market and how fundraisers can take a more cohesive and tailored approach to nurture supporters of wealth and deepen relationships.
From an operational perspective, this can have the added benefit of reducing duplication, while ensuring consistent messaging across teams. It also positions charities well to respond to the intergenerational transfer of wealth, which can influence not only legacy behaviour but encourage supporters in receipt of an inheritance to pass on some of that wealth in their lifetime.
Key principles for success
During the webinar, several key themes emerged for implementing a successful blended giving strategy.
Start with insight - Understanding your supporter base and their appetite for blended giving is essential, helping you build a roadmap that will enable you to meet their needs and draw in relevant colleagues for support. Begin with a gap analysis of your current fundraising approach to identify opportunities and barriers, such as siloed teams, and differing systems or processes. Piloting a blended giving initiative with warm prospects can help you test and refine your approach before rolling it out more widely.
Foster internal collaboration – Ensure everyone understands what your goal is and recognises what success looks like, no matter what pathway the supporter chooses to take. After all, a well-stewarded supporter is likely to continue to support the charity in a range of ways over time. So, foster collaboration between legacy, philanthropy, marketing and other teams to ensure alignment.
One prospect pool – From a supporter’s perspective, nobody sees themselves as a legacy pledger or a major giver, but as someone who cares deeply and wants to make an impact. So, explore how you can break down the siloes and support them in a more joined-up way, as one high-value prospect pool. What processes could be improved or removed to avoid duplication? Where are the opportunities to feed in legacies naturally as part of a wider discussion with supporters or, conversely, to highlight a major giving campaign to a legacy prospect? Practical tools such as gift agreements can help define that journey, providing clarity – and let’s not forget the power of a strong impact report.
Personalised stewardship is critical – Maintaining one relationship manager for each supporter will help to ensure consistency and build trust over time. From a charity’s perspective it can deepen knowledge of that supporter, what is most likely to appeal to them and maximise success. But it’s important that relationship managers are confident exploring the range of ways people might wish to give.
Try the 5 Ts: Time, Talent, Ties, Testimony, and Treasure – Philanthropy is not just about money but about enabling people to use their resources and abilities to create positive social change. The 5 Ts framework offers a holistic way to explore supporter engagement, helping to shape conversations and supporter journeys that reflect the full breadth of a donor’s potential contribution.
Track and celebrate success collectively - Consider a set of shared KPIs and success measures that will help you celebrate progress together across teams. Recognising achievements will help to embed blended giving into your organisational culture.
Rather than being a tactic, blended giving is a strategic approach that can build deeper relationships and secure sustainable income for the future.