Every charity with a diverse fundraising portfolio needs to realise their investment by growing revenue potential through one of the most important cornerstones of fundraising programs: Gifts in Wills.
In this blog we talk about real-world activities by engaging in supporter survey and solus mailings. This will allow your bequest program to fully develop, unlocking the potential of your loyal and hard-won supporter-base.
Where Do You Start?
A good place to start is by sending a supporter survey out every year (or at the very least biennially), electronically and through direct mail, to unlock the potential of your bequest program.
With a ‘soft ask’ component, effective supporter survey mailings should have a positive return on investment (ROI) from the get-go. This valuable exercise will give your organisation insights into what your supporters know about your organisation and its work, and how they would like to be communicated with. You will also learn what motivates your supporters to support your charity.
It is important to include a series of leading regular giving and major gift questions which will feed into your pipelines for giving, as well as a series of essential bequest related questions at the end. Don’t forget uncovering bequest leads and confirmed bequests is the main purpose of sending out a supporter survey.
It is also important to find out which charities your supporters have left a gift in their Will to, or which charities they support. This is a valuable opportunity to learn about who your charity’s main competitors are in the marketplace. Often confirmed bequestors will let you know about the other beneficiaries included in their Will, what proportion of their estate or assets they have allocated, and why they have chosen to support the other charitable organisations named in their Will.
The survey is a further opportunity to find out more about your supporters’ interests including finding out their cats’ and dogs’ names and recording them on your CRM, a must for animal charities! You can then use this information to reference in future direct mail activities, and as discussion points during phone conversations, or when your bequest officer goes to visit them, ensuring your positive relationship is maintained and can be taken to another level.
Supporter Survey Format – Direct Mail
A bequest survey direct mail pack would usually comprise of a DLX envelope, two-page letter, four-page survey (A3 format folded to A4 then DL) and response mechanism (which would include a soft ask for donations), and business reply envelope (BRE).
The survey would include a series of general questions asking how much your supporters know about your organisation, its services or the issues your organisation’s beneficiaries face, and ask for feedback on your services and communications followed by a series of bequest related questions which would look like this:
- I already have included ‘Charity X’ in my Will
- I am planning on including a gift to ‘Charity X’ in my Will the next time I update it
- I am thinking about including a gift in my Will at some point in the future
- I am unlikely to include gifts to charities in my Will
- I would like to be sent more information about how to leave a gift in my Will to ‘Charity X’
- I would like to speak to a member of ‘Charity X’s’ team about leaving a gift in my Will
During survey processing, it is incredibly important that your organisation can allocate appropriate staff resources to sifting through the hard copy direct mail survey responses and recording all the information onto your CRM. Just as important is ensuring that bequest information packs are sent to anyone who flags they are either interested, considering or intending to leave a bequest to your organisation. This should be done as soon as possible once survey responses have been received. Failing to do this can waste precious time and your leads can go cold. Also record sending bequest information packs as an action on your CRM so there is a record of when bequest information packs have been sent.
We recommend collating all hard copy surveys returned to your organisation and once processed, filing them in alphabetical order in lever arch files for future reference. It is a great idea to take completed surveys with you when you visit your bequest enquirers, intenders, considerers and confirmed bequestors—they will be chuffed you took time to bring them along and discuss the information they provided.
Repeat the survey every year or biennially. Although subsequent surveys won’t yield the same magnitude of results as the first year, it is a great way to ensure your supporters are engaged and their information is kept up to date, as well as obtaining more bequest leads and confirmed bequestors.
Often your supporters will tell you multiple times of their intentions or confirmation of leaving a gift in their Will to your organisation. Record each of those touch points in your CRM as they serve as reinforcement of the commitment your supporters have in ensuring your organisation is aware of their intentions.
Supporter Survey Format – Digital
Platforms such as Survey Monkey allow your organisation to conduct bequest surveys electronically for a relatively low cost and can integrate completed surveys via API to Salesforce CRMs.
To collate (soft and hard copy) survey information, we recommend that after updating your database with any changes of personal contact information provided by survey responders, you engage a supplier like Crystal Clear Data (who conduct online and offline direct mail surveys), who can manually enter all hard copy survey responder information into an interactive platform. This will give you the metrics on how your supporter survey performed and reduce the hours of labour required by your organisation.
Telemarketing Calls – Survey Non-Responders Calling
If possible, allocate budget to conduct telemarketing activity to back up and leverage your charity’s investment in rolling out supporter surveys.
Contacting everyone who has not sent in their survey by phone serves to mop up any laggards who haven’t yet responded. This is a great way to engage with your supporters, reaffirms your charity’s need for bequests and uncovers more bequest leads and confirmed bequests. There are many telemarketing agencies who specialise in bequest calling; do your research to find the best supplier suited to your needs.
Telemarketing Calls – Bequest Information Pack Confirmation Calling
Around two weeks after bequest information packs have been sent in the post to enquirers, intenders and considerers, phone everyone who has been sent one to confirm that they received their pack safely and ask if they have any questions. Again, this is a great way to recognise any movement through the pipeline of enquirer, considerer, intender and confirmed bequestor, and an opportunity for you to then record those movements.
Targeted Solus Mailings
Targeting your most likely supporters by sending solus direct mail packs can be a great way to directly ask your loyal supporters to leave a gift in their Will to your charity. Solus mailings are a great opportunity for your CEO to write a letter demonstrating your charity’s need for bequests in a sensitive way and as a direct ask.
Solus mailings usually comprise of an outer DLX envelope, four-page letter from your CEO (often featuring a testimonial from a current confirmed bequestor), bequest information brochure, bequest intention response mechanism and business reply envelope (BRE).
Targeting your most loyal supporters to receive a solus mailing is based on a formula by segmenting your audience by gift frequency, recency, length of giving and monetary amount, along with age. Also bear in mind that most direct mail programs are grown through direct mail acquisition (with an average age of 71), and that these supporters will be your prime target audience.
Bequest Welcome Pack
To underpin and further all your hard work, all confirmed bequestors should receive a bequest welcome pack, which thanks and acknowledges their commitment to ensuring the sustainability of your charity into the future.
Welcome packs usually comprise of a DLX outer envelope, two-page letter from your CEO, bequest welcome brochure and a keepsake as recognition for belonging to a bequest club, such as a lapel pin, certificate or a token of perceived value.
Send bequest welcome packs out as soon as possible after your organisation has received notification that it has been named as a beneficiary in a Will by your confirmed bequestors. Also directly call each confirmed bequestor on the phone to thank them personally, demonstrating your appreciation in them by supporting your charity in the most significant way. Do not underestimate the power of doing this. It will cement in your supporters’ minds that they are valued and appreciated in their decision to give your organisation the ultimate gift.
Reporting - Metrics and Measurement
As with all good fundraising programs, analysis is key! Ensure you are measuring everything you can against which to compare future activities. On average, each confirmed bequest represents $65,000 of future income. By calculating the cumulative future income from the number of confirmed bequestors, you will quickly see how this specific fundraising program can perform with the best ROI by a country mile of $57 for every $1 spent compared to any other fundraising program.
While bequest surveys and solus mailings can be foundational to your charity’s portfolio, issues may arise in relation to estate management and handling contested estates—look out for future blogs that navigate these topics!
Kerin Welford
Director, Bluestone Fundraising
