FirstClass sends iconic college’s legacy programme to the top of the class

The background


Imperial College London (Imperial) is a world-leading university for science, technology, engineering, medicine and business.


It was founded in 1907 with a mission to use science to try to understand more of the universe, and improve the lives of more people in it.


Viewing science as more than simply a subject but a mindset, a bias for inquiry and action, and the pursuit of knowledge and new ideas with grit, humility, creativity and courage, Imperial now has a number of campuses throughout London and the South East of England.


With total charitable income amounting to £60m a year, £5m of which originates from bequest giving, the legacy team decided that it was time to accelerate its legacy programme in order to boost legacy-related revenue. 


Yet, with a legacy management infrastructure historically built around manual methods using a combination of spreadsheets and CRM, the legacy team established that this was not enough to effectively maximise the value of its estates.


In order to do this whilst futureproofing its legacy management capabilities, increasing revenue and improving the efficiency of the legacy management team, Imperial chose FirstClass – making it the first educational institution ever to incorporate the platform.

“Prior to integrating FirstClass, we were doing what we could with what we had, but it was quite basic. In terms of recording data, we were limited to the essentials. In order to establish the fundamentals, such as average gift size or whether a gift was pecuniary or not, we had to work really hard and piece the data together manually in order to get what we needed. Since adopting FirstClass, this level of data – and so much more – is available at our fingertips.”


Katharine Palmer, Legacy Officer at Imperial College London

The project:


Having used FirstClass in a previous role at a prominent UK charity, Katharine’s manager, Anna Wall, joined Imperial with a clear vision that FirstClass needed to be part of the legacy team’s evolution. However, legacy marketing and the establishment of a legacy programme needed to take priority before FirstClass could be implemented.


Although one thing that every member of the organisation was clear on was that bequests represented a huge opportunity for the organisation. The figures reflected this, too.


When the legacy programme was established in 2015, legacy income stood at £1m a year. Having grown year-on-year over nine years to £5m, it was becoming clear that spreadsheets and CRM alone were not enough to manage this level of income – let alone grow it.

“Whilst legacy income was growing as the programme grew, it was clear that it was becoming increasingly difficult to manage using manual methods. After demonstrating to the wider team what was possible when using FirstClass, the decision was taken to invest in the system – and nobody has looked back. The Advancement Division, under which legacy management falls, highly values data. Now we can provide them with as much as they want including how we compare against our peers.”


Katharine Palmer, Legacy Officer at Imperial College London

With a desire for data to drive the team’s growth, which was difficult using the previous approach, the decision was taken to implement FirstClass in 2023. In February 2024, Imperial switched to FirstClass as the system went live. 


Looking ahead, Imperial is now focussed on using FirstClass to:


  • Become more efficient in communicating with the organisation’s legacy consultants, and, through the platform’s ability to streamline and standardise processes, ensure that every member of the legacy team is consistent in their approach to legacy management.


  • Make external auditing a more straightforward and less time-intensive exercise. Prior to implementing FirstClass, data was often questioned by the auditors as it wasn’t being presented in the correct format. Now, the data will be standardised and quickly accessible.


  • Consolidate and store all data, much of which originates from different sources – such as Smee & Ford – in one easy-to-use platform.

“Even within the first week of launch, our lives became much easier. From having to manually input everything on Raiser’s Edge, all correspondence now goes straight into FirstClass. But it’s not just day-to-day legacy management that’s become so much easier, the onboarding process was seamless, too. The FirstClass team helped us choose the right solution, assisted us with migrating our data and the training programmes were great. We’re really happy with the system and absolutely delighted to have become the first educational institution to adopt FirstClass.” 


Katharine Palmer, Legacy Officer at Imperial College London

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