RBL’s awareness and fundraising is very much geared around the annual poppy appeal. The appeal provides a huge opportunity to promote gifts in wills, with 40% of people across the country wearing a poppy – the majority of which are bought from volunteers in local communities. However, enabling volunteers to engage in legacy conversation alongside their other responsibilities during the appeal would be a significant challenge.
Volunteers, particularly senior volunteers, were incredibly busy during the appeal, and had to absorb significant amounts of information on topics as diverse as safeguarding to Gift Aid to contactless terminals. They needed an incredibly simple method of engagement alongside confidence and reassurance that it was appropriate.
We devised and delivered a pilot project, including: face-to-face training, webinars, pre-recorded videos, written resources, and specialist legal support. In practice, we found the most impactful resources were knowledge about the importance and impact of gifts in wills to RBL’s work and a very simple ask to hand out a leaflet as a thank you for a donation. The initial pilot project, covering two regions, is predicted to have raised over £300k in pledges, and will be rolling out nationally, drawing on the resources we have produced and using a train the trainer approach, so that RBL can deliver all future training themselves.
Legacy Voice has truly been one of the best agencies I have worked with in the sector. They listen and understand our needs, generating fantastic ideas and plans which meet objectives, benefitting our charity and our supporters.
Nicola Hall, Product Manager, Legacies – Royal British Legion
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