call0007

Warren Buffet, the master of investing once said: ‘What the wise man 🐢 does at the beginning, the fool 🐇 does in the end’. I agree but perhaps the word ‘idiot’ is a little harsh. Me thinks he can get away with it. There are three types of investors when it comes to legacy fundraising. 1. The ‘innovators’ - those few who believed that gifts in Wills income will grow despite low visibility. They’ve experienced significant income growth 📈 from legacies in the last ten years or more. 2. The...

When you need some light hearted but valuable stories about legacy fundraising, there's no better person than Ken Burnett. In his brilliant book 'Relationship Fundraising', he tells of a woman who had pledged a bequest to a charity and was later invited by charity to an open day at their offices. To get to this meeting she had to cross the charity's car park where she was struck by the number of BMWs and Mercedes parked in the car spaces. This pledger never got to the meeting. Instead, she...

I mean, there weren't many brown-looking legacy fundraisers. I'm pleased things have changed. You might think it would have been challenging for me to talk to audiences who were white, held fairly strong British colonial views, and were brought up watching racist programmes on TV. Think Alf Garnett. But you'd be wrong. I would travel and visit most of the 'Shires' across the UK, giving presentations about leaving gifts in Wills. At first I was slightly nervous, but after a few talks, I...