Does local have an unfair advantage in legacy fundraising?

CAF and Charity Commission research certainly suggests there might be something in this. CAF report that people who see charities making a positive difference in their community are 2x more likely to donate locally. But legacy giving isn’t the same as everyday giving, of course. And the idea of ‘local’ has been cropping up in my own work recently. Across very different organisations, working at different scales and in different countries, I keep coming back to the same question: what does ‘local’ actually mean to the supporter?

And perhaps more importantly, what scale are we writing our legacy propositions at?

The place within the place

During supporter insight work for Somerset Community Foundation, one supporter talked about why she valued the organisation. For her, its strength was its understanding of the trends and issues affecting Somerset, and its ability to respond flexibly as those needs change.

But when she talked about the Somerset she cared about, she pictured the Quantocks, where’s she’d grown up. She talked about villages she knew and the people living in those communities when she thought about the issues they might be facing.

That distinction stayed with me.

The organisation works at county level. Her connection to it was much more personal and specific. Yet she valued the Foundation precisely because it could see the bigger picture. There’s something important in that for legacy fundraising.

Making a big geography feel closer

With Essex & Herts Air Ambulance, I was looking at the same question but from a different angle. Being a regional charity doesn't automatically make you feel local. What makes the connection real are the proof points: where missions happen, how many incidents the service attends and the communities the helicopter is flying into.

There's also something unusually visible about an air ambulance. You hear or see a helicopter overhead and wonder where it's going. Making the connection between those moments and the work of the charity brings a large regional service much closer to home. The data matters, but not simply because it demonstrates impact. It helps people recognise the organisation as part of their own community.

Another version of this came up in my work with Sacred Heart Mission in Melbourne. One long-standing supporter first encountered the Mission through what he saw while walking his dog locally. People sleeping rough in parks weren't an abstract beneficiary group to him. They were his neighbours, members of his community, and he was drawn to an organisation he saw as relentless in not giving up on them. His connection to the cause wasn't abstract. It was part of the place where he lived.

Three quite different manifestations of the same thing: the scale at which a charity operates isn't necessarily the scale at which someone connects with it.

What does that mean for a legacy proposition?

I think we sometimes get nervous about being too specific in legacy fundraising because we don't want to encourage restricted gifts. That's understandable. A gift might not arrive for decades, and what a community needs then may be very different from what it needs today. But being specific about the connection doesn't mean we have to be specific about the eventual gift.

In fact, I think the specific is often what draws someone in. The job of the wider case for support is then to give them enough evidence and reassurance to trust the organisation with the bigger picture.

The Somerset example captures that beautifully. The Quantocks are part of what makes the cause personal. Somerset Community Foundation's wider knowledge, reach and flexibility are what make it possible to trust them with a future gift.

With Essex & Herts Air Ambulance, local mission data can connect the helicopter someone sees overhead with a much bigger regional service.

The specific creates the emotional connection. The proof points build the trust.

That's not just a local charity issue either. For a national charity, what feels close might not be a place at all. It could be a diagnosis, an experience, a service that was there when someone needed it or a person they loved. So perhaps local charities do have a bit of a head start. When your work is visible in someone's everyday life, some of that connection is already there.

But I think the more useful question for any legacy fundraiser is this:

What scale is your legacy proposition written at?

Is it written at the scale of your organisation, its strategy, services and operating footprint? Or does it start somewhere the supporter can actually see themselves?

You don't have to make the organisation smaller to make the connection more personal.

You just need to understand what brings it close.