Insight to impact: The journey into the unknown - Richard Radcliffe
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Never in my life have I witnessed so much empirical insight into legacy giving, with micro to macro
research springing up almost daily. Yet, never in my life have I felt so much doubt as to the extent of
the impact we can make in terms of converting the public into REAL legacy givers.
The road to Damascus for St Paul was a journey of conversion; a suitable phrase for us as legacy
fundraisers.
How do we first spark an interest in legacy giving non-believers and then convert them to being the
REAL thing. And then, how do we maintain that conversion for a lifetime?
This is the absolute pinnacle of the problem facing us all every day. But to me, there is added
urgency as this is also the era for empowering more people than ever before to leave a legacy.
Before all us baby boomers die, we have to find the solution to this problem.
A SWOT eye-opener
I recently did a legacy SWOT analysis with a client and it ended up overflowing onto four full pages.
This resulted in a great deal of frustration and excitement (as well as hysterical laughter). It was this
legacy SWOT that got me thinking of my keynote address at CAGP's upcoming conference. As I
sweated through hours of darkness, and almost into sunrise, I realised I had outlined 300 slides.
Before we meet at this year's conference, (and I hope you are coming!) I would like to reassure you
that I will not present 300 slides. (What I find frightening is that I had not bored myself to sleep after
producing 300 slides.)
I truly believe we are at the biggest watershed any generation will ever experience in legacy giving.
With changes in demographics, wealth, family environments and gender independence in financial
planning, just about every conceivable strength, weakness and threat opportunity is producing an
explosive volatility in the marketplace.
Past trends will not inform the future because lifestyles are so temporary. They are lifestyles the
globe has never seen before.
In my heart of hearts I do not believe we can easily segment prospects into standard segments.
When I look at myself I cannot allocate myself into a segment. Perhaps you might try to do the same.
I end up as fragments of many segments –which either means I am really weird (please let me know
your thoughts if or when we meet in Halifax!) or “typical” of our world today.
I am increasingly concerned that we use research into the past to inform our future at a time when
we should put the past into a trash can and focus only on the present and future. Speed of
communications and speed of lifestyle changes do not suit legacy giving which progresses so slowly
the word "speed" is really not on our horizon. Legacy giving is the tortoise against lifetime giving
which is the hare (and we all know who won that race).
Everything is now, now, now. Legacy giving is tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
This impacts heavily on the way prospects want to communicate versus the communications which
work for legacy giving. Here is just one example from focus groups in the last three years:
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90% of older generations say they WANT e-news NOT hard copy “to save money.”
90% of younger generations say they want hard copy newsletters to “leave out on the table”
so they can dip into them. To quote one participant,“I get so many emails I will never read
one from a charity.”
Excuse me isn’t this the wrong way round?
Please also note that out of 2,500 prospects interviewed, only 4% have visited their charity’s
website.
The problem really becomes apparent when we meet the same focus group stakeholders again, 1-3
years later:
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All the older ones say they feel “uninformed” because they have not read e-news (or they
delete them) because in retirement they are so busy.
All the younger ones say “I do not have time to read them but they are in a pile
somewhere.”
At the same time, research from many parts of the globe indicates trust and confidence is driven by
the cost of fundraising/administration for 1 in 2 donors. Whilst only 1 in 4 donors are interested in
the impact made.
I repeat: Isn’t this the wrong way round?
We live in an upside-down, confused world with temporary lifestyles where 1 in 3 stakeholders of
charities are saying they are going to put a gift in their Will to their favourite charity. The opportunity
is massive.
The heart of the matter is crystal clear: How do we really get them to actually DO IT; and when they
have done it, how do we make sure they do not change their mind.
And that is the precise focus of my keynote address. So please come and debate with me.
Let’s make sure we turn insight into impact.
Richard Radcliffe is Founder of Radcliffe Consulting which specializes in developing legacy income for
charities/NGOs worldwide. He has met probably every type of donor there is on the planet including
many hundreds of high net worth individuals and wow is it fun job!
pull-quote: "... we use research into the past to inform our future at a time when we should put the
past into a trash can."