Do you remember Live Aid? The year was 1998, hair was big, slogan tee shirts were ‘in’ and Bob Geldof was King of charity fundraising as he corralled stars of the music world into raising money to help people in poverty-stricken areas of the world.
Will Aid was born out of that seminal concert and 30 years on the scheme has raised over £20m with more than 3,500 solicitors writing over 300,000 basic wills in that time.
Today’s Wills and Probate was delighted to welcome Will Aid Campaigns Director Peter De Vena Franks to give a keynote presentation at its latest Round Table discussion held at the offices of Slater and Gordon in Manchester earlier this month. Peter began by giving some background about Will Aid.
What is Will Aid?
Held during the month of November (although participating firms do have the opportunity to accept instructions from as early as September when enquiry lines open), clients come to a participating law firm who will waive their usual fees for writing a basic will or pair of basic mirror wills, and instead only ask the client for a voluntary donation to Will Aid (the suggested donation amounts are £95 for a basic will, £150 for a mirror will). Proceeds are split between the nine charities partner charities.
The stated aims of Will Aid are:
- To encourage more people to get a Will in place
- Raise vital funds for the nine partner charities through the donations and also encourage charitable gifts in wills
- Ensure quality because the wills are written by solicitors
- Provide an opportunity for firms to promote their services and raise their profile.
How many people take part?
Last year there were around 50,000 enquiries and approximately 9,000 wills were written. Peter said: “The level of enquiries increase every year driven by growing awareness of the scheme, proactive PR supporting Will Aid and through promotion by the nine partner charities and people like the ‘money saving expert’ Martin Lewis.
“Our biggest challenge is meeting the unmet demand; quite simply finding enough solicitors in the right locations to help members of the public with their enquiry. Around 700 firms took part in 2017 and we’re looking to break the 1,000 firm barrier this year.”
Why should solicitors take part?
In response to a request for input from the solicitors present, members of the group said that they knew of firms that felt that the main reason for the reluctance to participate in the scheme was a fear of being overwhelmed by new clients when solicitors were already carrying heavy workloads.
However, higher levels of inbound enquiries should not be seen as a negative, but rather an opportunity to increase revenue. The key to success here is to ensure firms have a proper support system is in place. Professional and expertly trained in lead conversion, The Move Exchange is fully equipped to seamlessly handle Will Aid enquiries for firms, whether this be managing overspill or taking charge of them completely. For more information on how The Move Exchange Team could help your firm benefit from this rewarding scheme, please contact Jennifer.davies@themoveexchange.co.uk.
Sophie Yates, Director at Fodens Solicitors, said: “We take part in Will Aid and it has been fantastic for our business. We understand why some firms might be wary but, provided that the workload is sensibly managed, we have gained a lot from the scheme.
“The key is planning ahead. We sit down as a team and decide how much time we’re going to set aside for Will Aid work, who is going to do it, how it will be supervised and how many new clients we can take on. It’s fantastic for bringing in new work to the firm. The scheme covers basic wills but we would say that around 80% of clients instruct us for other work as a result of us writing their will. Types of work can range from Lasting Powers of Attorney to lifetime trusts and conveyancing work.”
Elaine Roche, Private Client Partner at JMW Solicitors in Manchester agreed. “Our experience echoes that,” she said, “we’ve also seen a benefit from the profile of the sorts of clients who come to us through Will Aid. They tend to be younger people or couples which gives us an opportunity to build a relationship with the client over a long period of time. Being in Manchester city centre we tend to see a lot of professional people which is also great for our firm.
“It’s good experience for the less experienced members of our team to start off with the simple wills required and this can help with resource planning as it frees up more senior solicitors to focus on complex work.”
The overall feeling in the room was that Will Aid was something that should be considered by all private client firms looking to build their profile in the local area, gain new clients and generate additional work – and all whilst raising vital funds for nine wonderful causes.
For more information contact 0300 0300 013 or visit www.willaid.org.uk
