1. Working with professionals to promote legacy giving
It’s an essential component of legacy giving

2. “The will-writing market in Britain has an estimated value of between £700 million and £900 million. Figures from The Probate Service show that almost 250,000 families go through probate court every year.”
Remind people that most people will die with a will
Source: Yougov.co.uk 2014

3. Source: Brooker 2007

4. Source: Legacy Services Consumer Panel n.d.
Search on law society website under find a solicitor wills, trusts and probate – 5454 firms, but only 183 accredited specialists
SRA – breakdown 10k firms, 139k solicitors
Source: Legacy Services Consumer Panel n.d.

5. From STEP policy briefing on the will writing market
Source: STEP

6. One in eight (12%) consumers appointed their will-provider as the executor of their will. Solicitors were far more likely than any other mode to become the executor: 19% of respondents who used a solicitor to write their will also appointed a representative of that organisation to be their executor (compared to 7% who used a specialist will-writer and 4% who chose the self-completion route). Around a third of respondents (32%) purchased additional services. Will storage was the most popular additional service – 32% who were offered additional services chose to pay for will storage, while Power of Attorney was the next most frequently purchased service (17%). The views of will- providers themselves broadly align with the findings of the consumer survey and the shadow shopping exercise: solicitors stated that clients are most likely to take up Power of Attorney (56%), while specialist willwriters stated that Power of Attorney (49%) and document storage (38%) are the most popular
A bit about how solicitors make their money…
Source: SRA.org.uk, n.d.

7. …and why they get involved with charities

8. From the Ministry of Justice’s quarterly statistics bulletin we know that between April and June 2016, 64 per cent of grant applications were made by solicitors and 36 per cent in person. The split has hovered around 65:35 for years, meaning there is statistically around a one-third chance that the will you stored will be probated by a lay person
With refusal to regulate will writing and plethora of new services entering the market, solicitors are having conversations about making will writing ‘reassuringly expensive’ – to move away from loss leader

9. What’s the role that professionals play in the legacy-giving process
What’s the role that professionals play in the legacy-giving process? (Get one or two contributions)
Writing the will
Prompting people to include a charity per se – although unlikely to recommend a specific charity
Administering an estate often with active involvement of the charities – might sometimes be ‘refereeing’ between them
Sometimes involved in choosing charities e.g. if they leave money to a cause-area or to charity in general

10. Power of social norms…
Sanders 2013

12. Solicitors can add value for charities but research suggests the process can be fraught
Nearly half the probate practitioners disliked the frequency with which the charity legacy officers contact them, and 47 per cent were unhappy with the level of detail they are asked to provide. Many did not approve of the tone adopted by charity officers in their correspondence: only 55 per cent of probate practitioners agreed that the tone of correspondence from charities is appropriate, and 29 per cent actively disagreed.
Moreover, only one in two probate practitioners considered that legacy officers provide a 'caring, compassionate and personalised' approach to their work. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 82 per cent of legacy officers thought that they did.
Legacy officers also tended to resent their practitioner counterparts' reluctance to listen to their advice. Only 38 per cent of legacy officers were satisfied with probate practitioners' willingness to accept assistance with charity law requirements, and the same number felt that they did not receive sufficiently frequent updates from practitioners. A third of the most experienced legacy officers expressed concern that probate practitioners lacked understanding of certain tax exemptions and reliefs.

13. Why would a community foundation want to work with professional advisors? (Will be interesting to see if people refer to, for example, being recommended)

14. See the slide below…

15. Value exchange exercise…
Half of the room to think about community foundations and what they might want from solicitors
Other half to think about solicitors and what they might want from community foundation
Access
Publicity
Credibility
Increasing the bottom line
Free advice
Philanthropy