Linking charities with legacy income
The background
Legacy Link is the UK’s largest legacy administration team with over 40 legacy consultants, providing outsourced legacy administration services. Its consultants help the charities they work with ensure their supporters’ final wishes are realised by managing the legacy administration process on their behalf - from notification to receipt of the gift.
Specialising in supporting charities of all sizes, from those typically too small to have their own legacy administration teams to some of the largest in the UK, Legacy Link currently works with over 100 charities at any given time. It has also played a role in reshaping legacy administration into the fully professional and critical aspect of charity management it is today.
Legacy Link’s philosophy is built around ensuring the legacy administration process is carried out correctly, and being able to offer big charity best practice to all charities, in a package which meets their individual budget. Legacy Link will work with their charity clients to discover whether the implementation of a robust legacy management system is right for them.
That system is FirstClass.
“With FirstClass, charities can gain access to insights and data that simply isn’t available to those who don’t use the system. I work with charities that don’t use FirstClass and charities that do and can say with 100 per cent certainty that those who do, deliver. There is nothing like it on the market. Nothing else comes close.”
Paul Browne, Head of Legacy Management at Legacy Link
The approach
On joining the business in 2016, having come from a commercial background where process underpins organisational success, Paul immediately set about recommending a legacy management system to its growing portfolio of clients.
Importantly, as a Director of the Institute for Legacy Management, Paul’s recommendations are impartial. However, as FirstClass has been designed to specifically manage legacy income – unlike general charity CRM and platforms such as Salesforce - there is no challenger to offer the same level of functionality.
These days, Paul and his team use FirstClass to help Legacy Link’s charity clients:
- Understand the bigger picture and timings associated with generating legacy income, such as how long it will take to secure the income and how much time a team will need to invest in order to receive it
- Access soft data that allows them to better understand what is really going on from a legacy income perspective and provide a true picture of each individual case file
- Plug directly into HMRC in order to quickly and easily reclaim tax
- Deliver estate valuations and record all legators’ assets so that they can be continually tracked – considering fluctuations in valuation in line with market peaks and troughs – throughout the entire process
- Provide immediate reporting on any aspect of data made available through the system
- Evaluate team value; in some instances, where charities felt that they didn’t have the budget to recruit an additional legacy team member, FirstClass was used to record all the value add within the legacy team and use the findings to illustrate that a new member was not only required, but financially viable
- Get much more from their legacy management function.
“If someone at a charity is looking for the best way to manage their legacy income, then FirstClass is always the recommendation. It’s a tool that can be used to deliver best practice – as simple as that. On a personal level, I know that I’m the most effective and efficient when using a properly configured FirstClass system, and if you asked any member of the team, they’d say the same thing, too.”
Paul Browne, Head of Legacy Management at Legacy Link
Legacy administration carries a hidden cost. Here's what it's really taking up, and what legacy professionals could be doing instead . Ask anyone who manages legacy administration what their day looks like and the answer rarely starts with relationships. It starts with paperwork. Documents to upload, correspondence to chase, reports to pull together, dates to track. The work is necessary and important. But for many legacy professionals, it quietly crowds out the things that matter most. That trade-off deserves more attention than it gets. Legacy giving is one of the most relationship-driven forms of philanthropy there is. The supporters who include a charity in their will do so out of deep, long-standing connection. Honouring that connection takes time, care and presence. Yet the administrative burden of managing legacy income can leave little room for any of it. The Administration Behind Every Gift Every legacy gift generates a significant amount of work before any income is received. Documents arrive from solicitors and need to be logged, stored and acted upon. Correspondence passes between multiple parties, including executors, solicitors, financial advisors and families, often over months or years. Financial reports need to be produced for trustees and auditors. Key dates need to be tracked so nothing falls through the gaps. For larger charities with dedicated teams, that workload is distributed. For smaller organisations, it often falls to one person. That person is also likely to be managing supporter relationships, attending sector events, and contributing to broader fundraising strategy. The hours spent on administration are hours not spent on any of those things. What Gets Crowded Out The hidden cost of administration is not just inefficiency. It is opportunity. Every hour spent uploading documents or chasing correspondence is an hour not spent building the relationships that become tomorrow's legacies. Legacy stewardship, by its nature, is a long game. The supporters most likely to leave a gift are those who feel genuinely known and valued by an organisation over many years. That kind of connection takes consistent, personal attention. It also takes confidence. When a legacy professional knows that every case is properly recorded, every date is flagged, and every financial report is accurate and accessible, they can engage with solicitors, executors and families with authority. When they are not sure whether the information is up to date or complete, that confidence erodes. And the people on the other side of those conversations notice. A Different Way of Working The organisations that manage legacy administration well tend to have one thing in common: a system that handles the administrative burden so the people do not have to. Not by removing the human element, but by giving it the space it needs. That means rapid access to records without searching through files or spreadsheets. Income dashboards that give an immediate picture of the pipeline and expected income. Financial reports that are ready when they are needed. Important dates flagged automatically. And correspondence and case notes held in one place, so nothing is ever lost or disconnected from its context. When those things are in place, the time equation changes. Administration becomes faster, more reliable and less draining. And the time that is recovered goes back where it belongs: into the relationships, the stewardship, and the work that only a person can do. Built for the Reality of Smaller Organisations For smaller charities, universities, arts organisations and heritage bodies, that kind of professional infrastructure has not always felt accessible. Enterprise systems carry enterprise complexity and cost. The gap between a spreadsheet and a full legacy management platform has felt, for many organisations, too wide to bridge. FirstClass 5 Essentials was built precisely for this. Cloud-hosted, ready from day one, and priced for organisations that don't need enterprise complexity. The Right Use of Time Legacy administration will always require care and attention. That is not something any system can or should remove. But the hours spent on the purely administrative parts of the job, the uploading, the chasing, the reporting, are hours that could be spent differently. If you would like to see what FirstClass 5 Essentials looks like in practice, we would be glad to show you.
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 to do with 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. It makes better use of everyone's time and gets the right voices in the room. For our next session, on Wednesday, 16th September at 11:00, we'd like to begin the discussion around Expenditure - feeding directly into how it will be handled in FirstClass 5. You can sign up using the Save the Date button below.
Priti Parmar has been a familiar, reassuring presence for FirstClass customers since 2018. Here is her story. Ask any FirstClass customer who they turn to when they need help, and Priti Parmar's name is sure to come up. Warm, patient, and quietly knowledgeable, she is one of those people customers turn to time and again. And for many, she is the voice that stays with them long after the problem is solved. What fewer people know is that Priti came to FirstClass having already encountered Clear, as it was then known, through a previous role. Clear's software at that time had a different product entirely, unrelated to legacies, but the connection was there. When the opportunity to join the team arose, she already had a sense of the company she would be walking into. A Different Kind of Support Priti's background before FirstClass was in support, but of a very different kind. She spent years helping internal teams handle insurance claims, working directly with claimants and taking on training and validation responsibilities alongside. It was detail-oriented, people-focused work that demanded both patience and precision. Those instincts - listening carefully, finding the right answer, making sure nothing gets missed - turned out to translate perfectly. The sector itself was entirely new, but the skill of supporting people through processes, and doing it with care, very much was not. When the opportunity at FirstClass came along, Priti took it. "It was the chance to move into something new and learn a whole new industry. I thought: why not." A Steep and Rewarding Curve Legacy administration, as Priti discovered, is not a world that gives up its complexity easily. The people she was supporting already knew their sector inside out: wills, tax, finance, estate law. The questions they asked were specific, technical, and often urgent. She joined at a significant moment too. A major software upgrade was underway, which meant supporting customers through a transition while simultaneously getting to grips with the different versions herself. Then COVID arrived, which brought its own particular demands and, in some ways, an unexpected opportunity to focus. "Initially it was a daunting task. But after a while it starts to become second nature. Even today I am still learning, and at times I also need support from the team myself." That last part matters. Priti does not pretend to know everything. She is comfortable saying she needs to find out, and just as comfortable making sure she does. For the customers she supports, that honesty is part of what makes the relationship work. The Part She Loves Most Ask Priti what she enjoys about the job and the answer is immediate: the customers. Not the software, not the processes, not the features. The people. She knows most of them by name, and in a sector as close-knit as legacy administration, that means something. Professionals move around. Someone she supported at one charity can reappear at another a year later, and when they do, the relationship picks up exactly where it left off. "I love chatting with customers and working out how I can help them. And if I cannot help them myself, I make sure I get the right information from those who can." It is a straightforward answer, and a revealing one. Support done well is not about resolving tickets. It is about the person on the other end of the call feeling heard, helped, and confident that someone is genuinely on their side. That is what Priti brings. A Team Worth Belonging To The warmth Priti extends to customers is very much a reflection of the team she works within. "I absolutely love them to bits. We are also close-knit, and I could not ask for a better team. No one ever hesitates to help, no matter what your role is. We are there for each other." Working remotely has not changed that. The team still makes a point of meeting in person once a month, keeping the social thread intact alongside the professional one. It is the kind of culture that does not happen by accident, and it shows. Beyond the Working Day Away from FirstClass, Priti finds her balance in movement and connection. Long walks in nature, time with family, and a genuine love of travel. She has explored the US, spent holidays with relatives in India, and counts visiting the Golden Temple on the India-Pakistan border among her highlights. These days, Europe is drawing her attention, Italy in particular. It is a life lived with the same open curiosity she brings to her work: always willing to explore somewhere new, always ready to learn. What Comes Next For now, Priti is exactly where she wants to be. Support is her world, and she sees plenty of road ahead in it. A software company never stands still, which means there will always be something new to learn, a new customer to meet, and another challenge to work through. For the customers who already know her, that is reassuring news. For those who have not yet had the chance to work with her, it is something to look forward to.
