Remember A Charity Week will take place in September
A new digital platform has been launched to help organisations to boost legacy donations.
The 200-strong legacy consortium Remember A Charity is announcing the launch of a digital platform, which enables charities to customise legacy promotion materials for use during Remember A Charity Week and beyond. This year’s week-long legacy promotion campaign takes place during 6-12 September.
In a first for the consortium, the digital platform allows each charity within the consortium to create personalised promotional assets for legacy giving featuring their own image, message, logo, brand colour and website address.
Designed to get more people talking about legacy giving, the campaign delivers a simple, but powerful ask ‘Will you?’, with a call to action tailored to each charity or cause. The ‘Will you?’ campaign creative was developed in partnership with Atomic London. This digital platform is available for charities participating in or joining the consortium before the end of July 2021, with generic campaign materials available thereafter.
Rob Cope, director of Remember A Charity, said: “Legacies are vital for so many charities, particularly now, when funding streams are so stretched. So, this year, our focus is on making it as easy as possible for charities – no matter what size or cause – to make the campaign their own, giving them the tools they need to start up conversations about legacy giving and to demonstrate what it enables them to achieve.
“Working together to amplify the message during Remember A Charity Week, we’ll be reaching out to people across the country, asking if they will help the nation’s charities by leaving a gift in their Will.”
Fundraisers highlight the importance of legacies and Remember A Charity Week as a springboard to engage with supporters about the opportunity of leaving a gift in their will.
Catriona Sinclair, fundraising manager for FRAME (Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments), said: “When there’s such a need for funding now, it’s not always easy to put the focus on longer-term returns, but gifts in wills really can make such a difference – especially for a small charity like us with big aspirations of driving change. Larger funding pots like these enable us to afford to carry out research, making real headway in finding viable alternatives to animal methods.
“Like so many small teams, we need to stretch our resources as far as we can. So, being able to create and tailor our own legacy resources for this year’s Remember A Charity Week is really exciting. We can’t wait to share them with our audiences this September.”
Karen Bolton, head of individual giving and legacies at Dementia UK, said: “It’s important we think ahead as the number of people diagnosed with dementia is estimated to rise from 850,000 to 1 million by 2025. Families will urgently need our life-changing specialist dementia care and supporters making a gift in their will can offer a lifeline to these families in years to come. Gifts in Wills mean that people can keep on making a difference to a cause they believe in once they are no longer here and give hope to families of the future.”
Georgina Bradley, administration manager at SongBird Survival, added: "Remember A Charity Week is a great opportunity for SongBird Survival to reach new supporters. Gifts in wills are so important for charities and anyone can do it. Remember A Charity Week really helps everyone to know how easy it is to remember a cause that is dear to their hearts and make a huge difference to the future of our precious songbirds."
During Remember A Charity Week, the consortium will run a high profile consumer awareness drive, encouraging the public to consider leaving a gift in their will. The campaign will include targeted social marketing and a promotional video featuring the Wombles. The consortium’s partnership network of Campaign Supporters (professional advisors, solicitors and will-writers) will also highlight the opportunity of leaving a charitable bequest to will-writing clients.
Promotional activity continues throughout the year, with national newspaper supplements celebrating legacy giving scheduled in The Daily Telegraph and The Scotsman during October.
