For 35 years, Comic Relief has captured the hearts of the UK public and facilitated an outpouring of generosity that has raised billions and changed countless lives in the process. Yet they have never talked about legacy giving, and as a result receive little legacy income. We found high levels of trust from a survey to 52k supporters and 35% said they were open to leaving a legacy. But only 1% had done so. Comic Relief needed a strategy to close this big gap from consideration to intention.
Legacy giving is not a sombre affair – legacy giving brings people joy. At the heart of Comic Relief’s brand is the idea that entertainment is a force for good. Humour is not a means to make light of a painful subject, but a way to gain control and use that new-found power to change the world. We developed a range of stories and types of humour to explore how they resonated with Comic Relief supporters.
We found that humour gets people’s interest, but it’s stories that move them to action. We need to use them both brilliantly. We developed a legacy strategy to close the intention gap – Humour for attention, cause for commitment. Our proposition invites people to Leave the world happier with a gift in your Will to Comic Relief.
New data released by Legacy Futures reveals that charity sector investment in legacy fundraising has grown considerably in recent years, likely reflecting both growing awareness of the importance of legacies in charity sustainability and hard work in securing budget for legacy marketing.
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Delegated authority allows charity trustees to assign some of their powers to internal committees, individual trustees, or employees, so they can carry out specific tasks or make certain decisions on behalf of the charity. In particular for us to allow key decisions in Legacy Administration.
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When talking to a charity fundraising director recently about getting trustees and other senior leaders on board with investing in legacies, she said: “Legacies is the equivalent of climate change. It’s so far ahead, people don’t want to invest in it.”
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