Act today: transform tomorrow: How a legacy appeal at Loughborough University had an unexpected legacy of its own

Rachel Third

Journal of Education Advancement & Marketing, 2018, vol. 3, issue 2, 182-187

Abstract: Over six months in 2016, Loughborough University in the UK nearly doubled the number of alumni pledging to leave a gift to the university in their will, using little more than an in-house alumni survey, three telephones and a back-to-basics, people-focused philosophy. The mini-campaign cost basically nothing beyond staff time. The principle was to get the fundraisers themselves — not a student-calling team or a third-party telephone marketing agency — to pick up the phones for a calling campaign to speak directly to a warm segment of alumni about their wills. They expected, rightly, that putting one-to-one human interaction back at the heart of legacies would yield admirable financial results. What they did not anticipate was that the exercise would be the catalyst for a permanent culture change, coming at a critical time for the newly created Philanthropy Office. Fundraisers at all levels of experience redeveloped a hunger for ‘relationship fundraising’. Against a backdrop in the UK in 2016 of a national loss of public trust in charities and a media furore on some questionable yet widespread fundraising practices, the experience transformed and re-energised the team, many of whom were at risk of becoming distanced and disillusioned by the same transactional mentality in fundraising that had led to a national crisis of confidence in fundraising in the UK.

Keywords: fundraising; legacies; staff motivation; donor stewardship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aza:jeam00:y:2018:v:3:i:2:p:182-187

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