In-memory giving is worth between £1.8bn and £2.4bn a year in the UK, and it’s growing fast. Charities spend an estimated 0.1% of their budgets on it.
Drawing on three rounds of research with in-memory donors, in 2012, 2018 and during Covid, Mark Phillips explains why bereaved people give, what they need from the charity they choose, and what drives them away.
Here’s the surprise. Asking isn’t what drives them away. Not one person said charities should never ask again.
What drives them away is getting the basics wrong. Thank-yous arrive weeks late, or never. Letters use the wrong name, or the wrong church. A signature looks like a bad photocopy. Of the charities we tracked, 44% sent a single communication and then nothing. Six didn’t reply at all.
It’s grief, and charities are treating it as a transaction.
Mark will share what donors told us in their own words, show real examples of charities getting it right and wrong, and leave you with four simple rules for doing better. None of them cost much. All of them start with saying thank you properly.
Mark Phillips