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.
