Almost half of Macmillan Cancer Support’s net income comes from gifts in Wills.
We work with Macmillan in many ways, providing long term support to their legacy marketing and administration teams.
Here we focus on Legacy Monitor, where they are founder members and the forecasting services which they access on a subscription basis.
What did we do?
For all our clients accurate income forecasting is crucial, informing vital spending decisions which balance off opportunities and risks. The team at Macmillan commission Legacy Foresight to provide regular forecasts helping to project future cashflow and to plan and budget effectively.
Through the Legacy Monitor programme we provide analysis of the market and important emerging trends, peer information for benchmarking, and evaluation of their own legacy performance across KPIs, to feed into their legacy fundraising strategy.
What was the outcome?
Over the past ten years, Macmillan has seen its legacy income grow by 7% p.a., significantly outpacing the sector as a whole (+4% p.a.) and the other extra-large legacy charities in particular (+3% p.a.). Macmillan have moved into third position in the legacy league table – from sixth ten years ago. Our long-term support has underpinned this growth.
Macmillan’s gifts in Wills strategy is guided by our benchmarking and analysis. The insights from the Legacy Monitor and from our forecasts have helped Macmillan to identify where the opportunities are, how they can benefit from these, and how much they should spend to do so.
“Legacy Foresight makes a difficult job significantly easier. As Director of Legacies at Macmillan, our ability to provide vital services for people living with cancer is heavily impacted by the decisions I make. Being able to predict income and budget accordingly is vital. Legacy Foresight provide the tools for me to convince my Executive Board where and when they need to invest, and to evidence the returns they will receive – and when they will receive them.”
“I know of no other organisation that offers such in-depth market knowledge and on-the-money analysis. It’s not a stretch to say that the information Legacy Foresight provide to Macmillan inspires us, pushes us to new campaigns and ways of working, and forms the basis of the majority of our tactical decisions around legacies.”
Craig Fordham
Director of Legacies
Macmillan Cancer Support