Legacy potential is everywhere - even where you least expect it

At About Loyalty, we have a lot of data. Over ½ million people have responded to our surveys now, and we estimate that we have 40 million data points looking at:

• How supporters behave (their giving history)

• How they feel (their emotional loyalty)

• How they intend to support in the future...

For those of you who know me, you’ll know that this gets me very excited! There’s little I like more than chucking all the data into a big mixing pot and seeing what comes out.

"We have 40 million data points looking at how supporters behave, how they feel, and how they intend to support in the future."

Every now and again, something really surprising and valuable appears. And that’s exactly what happened to me a little while ago…

Legacy insights from over 500,000 supporters

One of the things we ask in all our surveys is whether the supporter intends to leave a gift in their will to the charity they are supporting. We believe this is a far more effective way of measuring the impact of your legacy marketing communications than counting pledges, which is more of a measure of how much you ask than a true reflection of supporter intentions.

But enough of that, what did I find?

Well, overall, 13.9% of supporters said that they are Likely or Very Likely to leave the charity a gift in their will. And this goes up to over 35% for supporters who have the highest loyalty - but again, I digress.

I started looking at this by the supporter and how they give, either now or in the past. And this is what came out:

Two things immediately jumped out at me from this chart.

Look at the intention to leave a gift from Raffle supporters and Lottery supporters, furthest on the right. We often think that these people are only engaging with us for the chance to win a prize, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Take-out 1: All supporters have the potential to leave a gift in their will. Legacy marketing should not be a siloed activity, but one that reaches seamlessly across all supporters!

And secondly, in all segments bar one, the ‘Lapsed’ supporters have a higher intention that the ‘Active’ supporters. This ties into Richard's musings on Lapsed supporters, which you can read more about here.

Take-out 2: Lapsed supporters still love you. Let’s stop thinking of them as people who used to give, but think of them as people who still love you, but just haven’t transacted so recently. And let’s stop thinking of them as ‘Lapsed’ at all.

Conclusion: all roads lead to legacy

Of course, you knew all this already. Talk to everyone and keep them all happy. It’s not rocket science. But hopefully this single chart can give you the evidence you need to spread the word internally.

Do you want to know who’s most likely to leave you a gift — and how to reach them? We can show you. Get in touch to explore your supporters’ legacy intentions and how to turn insight into impact.

---

Join Roger and the rest of the About Loyalty team at Loyalty Day 2025, a free online conference dedicated to all things supporter experience: Loyalty Day 2025 | About Loyalty

Don't miss a single post: join our mailing list for musings, news and events, all helping you to improve your supporter experience: Join the About Loyalty community