In only the last two days I have met so many people who have had really bad experiences with Wills, families and charities it is enough to make me cry. These are examples of really insensitive charity communications without any regard for families. Then a few hours later I meet a truly lovely older female donor who had all her inheritance, in effect, “stolen by two cousins”. This great donor wanted to give the whole of her inheritance to a charity but was robbed of it due to the cousins. The solicitors handling the estate were really unhelpful. Then I listened to charities at the great Stone King event and charities were saying that some solicitors are appalllingly unhelpful as solicitors compared to banks – but banks charge more to administer estates. Then I heard of a case where a charity was supremely awful at dealing with some executors. This is all within one day.
It seems clear to me that many charities, solicitors, executors and familiy members are all, on occasions, bad communicators, BUT are charities REALLY interested in brand reputation and brand protection when dealing with potential whistle blowers and media enemies? I htink that many charities have great communication engines – but how many of them have a strong comms dept which has a great disaster recovery programme in event of a contested Will. It is, perhaps, about time we considered how legacy fundraisers influence communicators to produce an ace defence policy