At Legacy Futures, we often talk about the importance of data. But many charities still ask a simple question - why benchmark at all? Benchmarking is not just about numbers, it is about understanding your legacy position in context and using that insight to shape stronger investment and marketing decisions.

Interpreting your legacy performance

Most organisations know how their legacy income has changed over time. The real challenge is understanding why it has changed. If your income rises or falls, is the shift unique to your charity or part of a wider market trend? If it reflects the market, there may be little to diagnose. But, if the movement is specific to your organisation, it raises important questions:

• Are you doing better or worse than the market?
• How do you compare with your sector?
• How do you perform alongside your closest peers?

It is also essential to separate income from bequests. Income can be influenced by a few unusually large gifts, which although welcome, may not repeat. Bequest trends, however, reveal something far more meaningful - whether more or fewer people are choosing to leave you a gift in their will.

If your bequest share is rising, what might have driven that change? Was it your marketing, your brand or your visibility? If it is falling, what factors might have contributed and what does that mean for future investment?

Informing your forecasting

Forecasting legacy income beyond the next twelve months is notoriously difficult. You can estimate the next year’s cash based on cases already known, but predicting further ahead requires a more reliable foundation. Benchmarking provides this grounding. By looking at your historic bequest market share, whether at market, sector or peer level, you can apply that trajectory to market forecasts and build a more accurate view of the next five years. This approach replaces guesswork with evidence and helps support realistic medium-term planning.

Developing a stronger marketing strategy

We already know some broad truths about the legacy market. Legators tend to be older, more affluent, more often female and more likely to live in the south or southeast. But this describes the market in general, not the people who actually choose your charity.

Benchmarking allows you to understand the profile of your own legators:

• Are they older or younger than the market average?
• More or less affluent?
• Where are they based?
• Is your gender mix typical or unusual?

These insights help refine your proposition, shape your messaging and focus your marketing investment where it will have the greatest impact.

Most people leave gifts to several charities. While some combinations are common, each charity has its own distinctive pattern of gift sharing.

Understanding who your legators support alongside you offers valuable insight into the choices they make. With this knowledge, you can create strategies that increase your share of the final gift without needing to compete blindly.

Why not use free data?

There is very little free data available in the legacy sector. Legacy Futures’ Legacy Giving Report provides a useful high-level view of overall market trends, but it can’t tell you:

• How your income and bequest performance compares to your sector and/or peers, and whether you are outperforming or underperforming the market
• Who your legators are and where they live
• How they share their gifts
• Any of the other deeper insights needed for strategic decision-making

For long term planning, this detail matters. Only robust and regular benchmarking provides the depth of understanding needed to make informed choices.

Conclusion

Benchmarking is much more than a technical exercise. It gives you the clarity and context needed to make confident, forward-looking decisions about your legacy programme. By understanding how you perform compared with the market, your sector and your peers, you can identify strengths, spot risks early and invest where it will have the greatest impact. In a changing and increasingly competitive legacy landscape, this level of insight is essential for long term growth.