Twenty Years, Zero Doubt

The background


How Daniel Pepper and FirstClass have grown together - and why he wouldn’t have it any other way.


Some working relationships just work. They grow, they evolve, they quietly become indispensable - and before you know it, two decades have gone by. That’s exactly the story of Daniel Pepper and FirstClass.


Daniel, who heads up legacy administration at the Royal National Institute of Blind People, has been working with FirstClass for around twenty years - a journey that began at the MS Society before he brought his expertise with FirstClass's latest version to RNIB. Not as a passive user, but as a genuine partner - contributing to the development of successive versions of the software, and now looking ahead to what FirstClass 5 will bring.


It’s the kind of relationship that’s hard to manufacture and impossible to fake.


A Team That Stays - and a System That Keeps Up


Walk into Daniel’s world - figuratively speaking - and the first thing that strikes you is the warmth. He has never had to recruit in his eleven years at RNIB. Some of his team have been there eighteen to twenty years. It speaks to a culture where people feel genuinely valued, and where the work, however complex, feels meaningful.


And complex it certainly is. Legacy administration isn’t just about processing paperwork. It demands a working knowledge of wills, tax, finance, surveyors, and everything in between. With over 1,200 cases to handle each year and legacy income of circa £37 million - a significant proportion of RNIB’s total income - the stakes are as high as they come. Getting it right, consistently, is non-negotiable. Which is exactly why having the right system matters so much.


Daniel has a training approach that’s as simple as it is effective. When they moved to FirstClass 4 each morning, he’d place a fictitious letter or a will on his team’s desk and ask them to work through what needed to happen in FirstClass. No lectures. No manuals. Just real-world practice with the type of documents they would encounter. It kept everyone sharp, processes consistent, and meant the team could handle whatever came their way with confidence. When the move to FirstClass 5 comes, he plans to do the same - so the team hits the ground running from day one.


And the team behind the software? Daniel is just as effusive. Knowledgeable, responsive, and refreshingly honest about what they can and can’t do.


In a world where over-promising is almost the norm, there’s something genuinely reassuring about a team that gives you a straight answer. It’s the kind of trust that takes time to build - and twenty years in, it’s clearly very much intact.


“Amazing service, nothing is too much trouble - and I like that they will say no if they can’t do something."


Daniel Pepper, Legacy Management Lead at RNIB

Doing More - for Every Size of Charity


Today, RNIB uses FirstClass purely for their legacy administration and financial reporting - and it delivers both with quiet efficiency.


Since COVID, the team has worked from home - and it suits them perfectly. The peace and quiet that comes with remote working is, Daniel says, genuinely conducive to the concentration that complex legacy administration demands. And the results speak for themselves: since making the shift, the team has doubled its activity. Two factors get the credit for that, and Daniel doesn’t hesitate when asked what they are.


“Two things,” he says. “Working from home. And FirstClass.”


That makes Daniel’s team, by a considerable margin, the single most cost-efficient area of the charity. £37 million in legacy income, managed by a small, remote, deeply experienced team using a system they know inside out.


RNIB is, by any measure, a large operation. But Daniel is quick to point out that FirstClass isn’t just for organisations of that scale. A streamlined version of the product is available for smaller charities with fewer cases to manage - and he thinks it’s brilliant.


For any charity still on the fence, his advice is characteristically direct: choose the size that fits your needs and budget. And then get it.

“It will make you more audit compliant and is relatively cheap to get up and running versus the benefits. FirstClass makes your life so much easier. It’s built by the people who actually use it - it does exactly what it says on the tin."


Daniel Pepper, Legacy Management Lead at RNIB

More Than a System


Legacy work is, at its heart, human work. It’s about people - supporters who have chosen to leave a gift, families navigating grief, and charities trying to honour those intentions with care and precision. The empathy required to do it well isn’t something any software can provide.


But Daniel and his team have it in abundance. And FirstClass gives them the platform to channel it - handling the administration, reporting, letters, and the financial complexity, so that the human part of the job gets the attention it deserves.


Twenty years on, that’s still the point. And it still works.

You've Invested in the Tech. Now Let's Help You Grow.

By Fiona Paton • September 23, 2026
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.

A Relationship Worth Protecting

By Fiona Paton • September 9, 2026
The background Two decades with the National Trust, and still finding new ways to go further. The National Trust exists to protect and preserve places of historic and natural significance for future generations. It’s a mission built on the long view: on the belief that what’s worth having is worth caring for over time. It’s a philosophy that sits rather well with a twenty-year relationship with FirstClass. Legacy income of around £60 million a year funds the Trust’s core conservation work, protecting historic properties, caring for nature, and keeping some of Britain’s most loved places open for the people who love them. Managing that income, with around 1,200 cases open at any one time, demands a system that can carry the weight. FirstClass has been doing exactly that since the Trust was among the early adopters of FirstClass 2, growing alongside the product through successive versions. Jenny Alexander, who heads up legacy administration, leads a dedicated team, and among them is Kim Miles, a legacy officer who has been with the Trust for twenty-five years, using FirstClass for ten of those. Between them, the team brings years of FirstClass experience, whether at the Trust or across previous organisations, and a perspective on the system that is both broad and forensically detailed. Every Part of It Ask Jenny and Kim how they use FirstClass and the answer is straightforward: completely. Keywords for rapid searching, automation on reviews linked to case history and income, and custom reports built to their own specifications. Over two decades, the Trust has worked its way into every corner of the system, consistently looking for ways to make a complex operation run more smoothly.

Your Legacy Programme's Biggest Moment

By Fiona Paton • August 26, 2026
The charities that benefit most from Remember a Charity Week aren't always the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the ready ones. Remember a Charity Week, running 7 to 13 September 2026, is the sector's most significant annual moment for legacy giving. Hundreds of charities, solicitors and campaign partners come together to celebrate and raise awareness of gifts in wills, reaching supporters at precisely the moment they're most receptive to the idea. But awareness alone doesn't convert. The charities that make the most of the week are the ones that have done the less visible work beforehand; the kind that doesn't appear in a campaign toolkit but makes the difference between interest and action. The Preparation Most Teams Overlook Campaign assets, social content, and staff briefings are necessary. They're also the first thing every charity thinks of. What gets less attention is the foundation underneath: the data. Remember a Charity Week is as much about reactivating existing relationships as it is about reaching new audiences. Many of your most likely legacy pledgers are already in your database. They've supported you for years, attended events, and responded to appeals. The question is whether your records are accurate enough to reach them meaningfully. Outdated mobile numbers, incorrect email addresses, deceased supporters still on mailing lists - each of these doesn't just represent a missed communication. In the context of legacy giving, where trust is everything, a misdirected message or a wrong name signals to a supporter that they are not truly known. That signal is hard to undo. Before the week arrives, it's worth asking: when did you last review the accuracy of your contact data? Are your mobile numbers current? Do you know which supporters have already indicated an interest in legacy giving, and when they were last contacted? Moments like Remember a Charity Week are a useful prompt. If data accuracy isn't something your team reviews regularly, a sector moment this significant is as good a reason as any to make it a priority, ahead of this week, and as a habit going forward. Meeting Supporters Where They Are Once your data is in good shape, the question becomes how to reach supporters during the week itself and through which channels. Email remains important, but it operates in an increasingly crowded inbox. For legacy teams looking to cut through during a busy awareness week, mobile messaging offers something different: immediacy, intimacy, and a read rate that email rarely matches. RCS , the successor to SMS, delivers branded, interactive messages directly to a supporter's phone, with read rates of 60-80% and engagement up to three times higher than standard SMS. A message sent during Remember a Charity Week directing a supporter to your gift in wills page, or to a Free Wills Month booking in October, lands in a channel they already trust and use every day. QR codes are equally underused in legacy communications. A code on an email footer, a social post, or any printed material can take a supporter directly to your legacy page in a single scan: no URL to remember, no delay between the impulse and the action. The supporter who wants to give is already there. The only thing standing between that feeling and a completed action is making it easy. Through our sister brand Cymba , which brings over 20 years of messaging expertise for charities, we're already helping legacy fundraising teams build mobile campaigns that reach supporters at exactly the right moment. If your charity is already working with Cymba on regular giving or text-to-donate, the infrastructure to extend that into legacy communications is closer than you might think. For more on the channels and audiences most relevant to legacy giving right now, our article on Gen X and legacy fundraising is worth a read. The Bridge to Free Wills Month Remember a Charity Week and Free Wills Month in October are two separate moments. But they can equally be seen as stages of the same campaign. The groundwork laid consistently throughout the year, at moments like these and the ones that follow, is what determines how well you capitalise on them when it matters most. The awareness built during the week, through social content, supporter emails and mobile messaging, primes supporters for the practical next step that Free Wills Month offers. A supporter who receives a thoughtful, well-timed message in September and is directed to your gift in Wills page is far more likely to act when Free Wills Month opens than one who encountered your legacy programme for the first time in October. Ready When the Moment Arrives The organisations best placed to make the most of events like Remember a Charity Week are the ones with the right infrastructure already in place: a clear view of their supporter data, the confidence to reach people through the channels that actually work, and the case management foundation to handle what follows. Together, FirstClass and our data cleansing team give legacy professionals the pipeline visibility, case management, and clean data that makes every communication count. And through our sister company Cymba, the mobile messaging capability to reach supporters where they already are is closer than most teams realise. If Remember a Charity Week or Free Wills Month have prompted some useful thinking, that's exactly the point. The most effective legacy programmes aren't built in a week; they're built on consistent foundations for when these events arrive, everything is already in place. If any of the ideas here are worth exploring for the coming months or the year ahead, we'd be glad to talk.