ILM Annual Conference 2025: Highlights from the FirstClass lounge

At FirstClass, we’ve always believed our product should grow with the charities and non-profits who use it. Your input has shaped the way we build, and now we want to take that collaboration one step further. Monthly Check-in Calls We’re introducing monthly check‑in calls, an open forum where you can drop in, chat with the team and other customers, and explore anything related to the product. No agenda, no pressure. Just space for conversation, questions, and shared ideas. These sessions give you the chance to: Share your priorities and help shape how we address different aspects of the system Stay informed on technical updates, including external systems like SQL or Outlook What’s new across our Team, billing, and the wider company See functionality demonstrated live - if you’re unsure how something works, we’ll show you Updates on features and fixes in the latest releases Ask questions on any part of the system Whether you join for five minutes or stay for the full hour, this is your space to connect with us. It’s a chance to explore challenges together, share experiences, and help shape a product that truly works for charities. We’ll host these sessions monthly on Microsoft Teams, giving you regular opportunities to drop in and join the conversation. As the sessions develop, we'd like to occasionally bring a specific topic to the group rather than holding separate meetings. This makes better use of everyone's time and brings the right voices into the room. Our next session will cover the upcoming pension changes and how they might be handled in FirstClasswill on Wednesday, 18th November at 11:00. You can sign up using the Save the Date button below.

You've invested in the right technology. FirstClass gives your team the infrastructure to manage legacy administration with precision, visibility, and confidence. The question worth asking now isn't whether the system works. It's whether you're growing with it. A System Built for the Long Game Unlike a CRM built around fast transactions and contact records, FirstClass is a case management system designed for the long, complex timelines of legacy administration. A single legator can have multiple legacies, contacts, reviews, and years of correspondence, all tracked in one place across a timeline that can span decades. That architecture is what makes legacy administration possible at real scale. Most customers know this. What's less obvious is how much depth the system has to offer over time. Our Open Spaces sessions bring customers together to share how they use FirstClass, and the conversations are genuinely illuminating. Teams with years of experience are regularly discovering new approaches, ways of handling income, managing reviews, or structuring their pipeline that they hadn't considered before. Others in the room take those ideas and apply them the following week. That kind of peer knowledge, built up across a community of legacy professionals, is hard to find anywhere else. Regular Giving and Legacy Fundraising: Are They Talking to Each Other? Most charities are engaged in both regular giving and legacy fundraising, and often the two don't talk to each other as much as they could. They should. Regular givers of today, nurtured through long-term stewardship, become the legacy pledgers of tomorrow. The relationship that starts with a monthly direct debit is often the same relationship that ends with a gift in a will. The supporter who has given loyally for twenty years is precisely the person most likely to consider a legacy, if the conversation is started at the right moment, through the right channel. So when a thank-you message goes out to a regular giver, is it also pointing them toward your gift in wills page? When a supporter reaches a significant anniversary of giving, is that milestone being used to deepen the relationship in a way that opens the legacy conversation naturally? These aren't complicated asks. They're moments already in the calendar, communications already being sent. The question is whether the marketing is joined up enough to make the most of them. The Data That Makes It Possible Joined-up marketing depends on joined-up data. And that's where many legacy programmes quietly lose ground. Outdated contact records, missing mobile numbers, deceased supporters still on mailing lists - these don't just create administrative problems. They limit the effectiveness of every communication your team sends and every campaign your fundraising colleagues run. A personalised message sent to the wrong address, or addressed with the wrong name, does the opposite of what it was intended to do. Clean, accurate data is what connects FirstClass's case management capability to your legacy programme's growth potential. It's what makes it possible to identify your most engaged regular givers, reach them through the channels they actually use, and start the legacy conversation at exactly the right moment. Without it, even the best marketing strategy and the best system in the sector will underdeliver. Data cleansing isn't a one-off project. It's an ongoing discipline, and one that pays for itself in more accurate reporting, more effective communications, and more cases entering the pipeline. Growing With Confidence FirstClass is built to handle volume and grow with you. The opportunity is in making sure the marketing, the data, and the stewardship are working together to fill it. The legacy professionals who make the most of FirstClass tend to be the ones who treat it not just as an administration tool but as the foundation of a joined-up programme. One where regular giving and legacy fundraising inform each other, where data is kept current, and where the system's full capability is being put to work. If any of this has sparked some useful thinking, our team would be glad to talk it through.