How charities can do more by engaging Australians in a conversation about gifts in Wills

Thank you to FIA ‘s Include a Charity campaign for enabling Legacy Foresight to deliver the first ever Australian gifts in Wills Report. Meg Abdy and the team project an exciting future for the gifts in Wills market in Australia and anticipate the growth will be stronger than the UK. In real terms we can expect income to be between 2.1 and 2.6 times the value in 2040. Gifts in Wills already contribute significant funds to our work so imagine the potential impact our organisations make with double this.

There are five key drivers for the projections which were: 

1. Death rate resulting in the number of Wills realised each year 
2. Number of child-free people 
3. Value of the real estate market 
4. Value of the share market
5. Investment by our organisations in charity marketing

The first 4 macro-economic factors we can’t impact but as a sector we can do much more to increase the size and engagement of Australians who will consider leaving a gift in their Will.

It is amazing to see what people can do from the humblest of circumstances by leaving a gift in their Will. It just makes sense that we should share this opportunity with more people and demonstrate the impact their gift can make. Even just starting the conversation commences the journey of a gift they just never considered before. Here are my 5 key takeaways on how to grow gifts in Wills for your charity.

Insight 1: Invest. We are doing our entire sector a disservice with little investment in gifts in Wills. Our benchmarking shows that we are currently investing only 3% to deliver 23% in bequest income and in the UK the gifts per 1,000 deaths has increased from 4 to 6% while Australia has remained flat. Meg said of our investment “It could be spend that was very efficient but I would counter, that even if you would increase to 4 or 5% of the budget that would have a dramatic effect” She also said that while inheritance tax may have some impact on the UK results it is still extremely likely that we can grow the number of Australians leaving gifts in Wills.

Action: Invest 5% of your previous year of realised gifts in Wills income

Insight 2: Expand your target audience. There are many reasons that people will consider leaving a gift in their Will and sometimes you will never know why. There is a huge potential market that expands beyond your current active donors.

1. Explore mass market opportunities – In the UK over the past 5 years investment in direct response TV has grown 5 times in value to connect with their “unknown” bequestors and create opportunities to engage with supporters. Invest in TV and digital with a direct response to gifts in Wills . This will create a halo to normalise gifts in Wills but it will also keep your charity top of mind when they go to include their gift. 
2. Connect with all available audiences in your organisation – There is increasing evidence that our current propensity models are too heavily weighted to recency, frequency and value, excluding entire audiences. Look at all stakeholder groups from beneficiaries and their families, to volunteers, online advocates and deeply lapsed donors. The investment should be proportionate to their propensity as different audience groups will deliver different results, but in almost all cases investment in gifts in Wills has great upsides for your charity. 
3. Communicate omni-channel – Don’t limit your thinking to just people on your CRM. With an ever-expanding digital footprint make sure you explore an omni-channel approach. Your messages and surveys should extend across social, email, mobile (both conversational and push notifications), in person and print. There are so many creative ways to start a conversation about gifts in Wills that you can test many combinations of creative and channels to start a conversation.  

Insight 3: Scale for volume. Along with the growth in value of gifts we will also be faced with a substantial increase in the volume of people we need to steward and administer their gift. This will require us to resource our teams with both the people-power and technology solutions to deliver high engagement relationships at volume. Consider:

1. Identify and develop marketing automation to support your teams and improve their effectiveness in stewarding those who are considering leaving a gift in their Will. We know this is a long term play so be prepared for a 2-3 year journey map with strategic use of behavioural economics.
2. Scale up your estate administration capability. This will both ensure efficient processing of gifts but also provides greater confidence to executors and Will writers who value our professionalism and effective use of gifts as soon as possible. Building trust with all our stakeholders is invaluable.  

Insight 4: Recognise the changing audience. By 2030 baby boomers will be the largest cohort likely to leave a gift in their Will. With this comes a significant shift in attitude and expectations for charities. Meg talked about their need for more transparency, tangibility and control. To achieve this, we will need to be able to engage with these people during their lifetime and give them the confidence that their gift will be utilised in the way they wish. We must build trusting relationships that consistently demonstrate our ability to understand and record their wishes. Make sure you are prepared with:

1. Experience management or survey tools to collect data on attitudes and motivations to leaving gifts. Don’t leave this information sitting in your CRM but utilise as quickly as you can by creating triggered journeys that match their belief systems.
2. Invest in dialogue marketing rather than a 'spray and pray' approach. The more that we can scale 2-way marketing the better we can demonstrate and deliver on their need for transparency, tangibility and control.  

Insight 5: Work holistically. Their gift in their Will is just part of their life story. Make sure you look at the many ways they wish to engage with you and your cause and ensure everyone in your organisation is working to the same outcome.

1. Create a relationship of reciprocity so that you give back even more often than you ask for more. There is so much more we can do to expand our mission impact if we engage in a 2-way relationship that extends beyond their financial contributions we can accelerate our impact and even benefit our supporters during their lifetime. There's so many materials we can access if you look through what your mission teams have developed and can easily be shared whether it is health guidance, gifts and discounts or lifestyle tips it can all be of benefit.
2. Build a matrix of communications that includes content for those that want to understand your cause and impact even further. I am seeing high engagement rates in email and SMS from older audiences and with a growing self-education trend we can enable this search for knowledge even more. Explore events, webinars, podcasts, white papers … the list goes on and can all provide a deeper and more connected relationship and empower our supporters to also be our influencers. 
3. Design the right journeys that values their contributions to other channels and stewards this life-changing gift respectfully.

It was fantastic to be a partner of Include a Charity Week and this report. More than ever, IaC week has illuminated the exciting potential of gifts in Wills for the future of Australia.