Been on my travels to Cornwall, Worcester, Norwich and Scotland in the last few weeks, hence no blogs so sorry about that. However in conducting my research, I've been asking people (regular charity supporters) about their charitable intentions, if they've made a charitable will and if so, who is mentioned and why.
As you can imagine I've been getting some very interesting answers and, whisper it very quietly,Richard Radcliffe might just have a point when he says people lie! I don't think they knowingly lie about charitable bequests but I get the feeling that they don't tell the whole truth and unless a charity can maintain a close relationship they will never know or understand changed circumstances and feelings.
In my last post I mentioned that two charities, both in my wife's will had not responded well to my requests for changed status etc. One of them, The National Trust cocked up big time and certainly will not be mentioned in my updated will. The other? Well let's wait and see how they respond in the medium term!
What I'm finding is people do write new wills changing bequests but they never tell the charities, who generally, never find an appropriate way to ask anyway.
I'm doing a talk for the DSC fundraising fair on Friday about, "Marketing Strategy for Effective Fundraising" and have been revising my notes. One of the definitions I cite is worth repeating here for anybody thinking about their communications strategy. It's from Tom Peters and talking about relationship marketing says it needs to be about, "The relentless pursuit of an almost familial bond between customer and product." That's where we need to be at.
