How tech helps charities to deal with complex legacy cases

The process for charities to secure much needed funds from legacy gifts can be an arduous one.

Understandably when someone dies the legal process of distributing their estate is time-consuming, with many details around property, investments, and savings to be sorted.

Delays in probate post-pandemic have not helped the situation. In April 2024, a Freedom of Information request submitted by wealth management firm Quilter to the Ministry of Justice revealed that the number of probate cases taking more than six months to be granted had more than doubled over the previous three years.

The most complex cases can also add to the workload for charities, solicitors, and families. But increasingly technology is being used to help speed up this process, particularly when many charities are involved and the complexity of cases is ramped up.

Here we look at how legacy and technology experts have come together to untangle a particularly complex case, involving £300,000 left to 125 charities.

The challenge

The death of a women in August 2022 left her families’ legal team with a mountain to climb as she had kindly left the money to a vast array of charities, including some of the UK’s largest and smallest not for profit organisations.

While some charities had an experienced legacy team in place backed by robust administration, others were not so well resourced and lacked knowledge in dealing with such a case. There was a real danger that some of those charities involved would never receive their intended donation.

The solution

Consultancy Legacy Futures and technology platform SenseCheck became involved on a pro bono basis to help solicitors communicate swiftly and efficiently with so many charities.

SenseCheck is a workplace and project management communications tool focused on legacies to help charities and lawyers work together more efficiently. When it was used for this particular case, it was still in its infancy so was used as a pilot.

The tech offers a portal to charities with legacy notifications and to improve legacy management workflow. For solicitors a portal is also set up to help manage communication with multiple beneficiaries.

One of the main challenges the Legacy Futures and SenseCheck teams faced was persuading so many charities to sign up to a then unknown platform.

Fortunately, the vast majority did with 115 signing up to ensure they and the solicitors involved could keep each other up to date. Out of a total of 135 charities listed ten were found to no longer exist and a further ten did not sign up to SenseCheck, but were still communicated with through traditional methods of communication by phone and email.

The result

At the time of writing in September 2024, 100 of the 125 charities had received their legacy gift with the remaining set to receive theirs shortly.  

The platform ensured that throughout the process each charity receives notifications at the same time and had simultaneous access to documents to further speed up the process.

The use of the platform as a pilot for this case meant SenseCheck was able to have direct feedback from solicitors and charities about improvements.

As a result, it has now introduced an online chat function to allow multiple beneficiaries to talk to each other. This has helped less experienced charities to ask questions of those with a strong track record of receiving legacy gifts.

SenseCheck and Legacy Futures say using the platform saw a 25% fall in the time taken to ensure charities received their legacy gifts, when compared to traditional communication methods.

"SenseCheck streamlined and helped organise the whole process,” said Legacy Futures head of legacy administration Paul Browne.“ Through it, we were able to get communications to charities instantly, saving so much time in admin. Because it was instant, all the charities received access to the documentation in the same way and at the same time. I was able to make regular contact with the solicitor and send charities updates – all in one email."

Sense Check Chair George Stark adds: “For the beneficiaries, our platform provided a secure hub for receiving information, collaborating, and making collective decisions.”

Charities’ verdict

Among charities involved in this complex legacy gifting case are World Horse Welfare and Combat Stress.

Bev Spiby, Senior Legacy Officer at World Horse Welfare says: “Had we not used SenseCheck, the executor would have had a difficult time to make contact with all the beneficiaries and keep us updated.

“The costs would also have been high. Equally, if a lead charity had been appointed, this would have been time consuming and onerous.” 

“SenseCheck made the process so much simpler and very cost effective. The executor just needs to provide one update or upload one document online for us all to view. You receive a notification when there is something new to view.”  

Combat Stress Head of Planned Giving Sarah Seddon adds: “Keeping informed about the status of a legacy is vital in helping forecast income which funds our work. 

“Whilst it’s wonderful this supporter wanted to benefit over 100 charities, my heart slightly sank at the thought of how it would be managed.”

She added: that having the process was made easier by having “one place where all the charities could go to review the status, download relevant files and receive notifications”.