Plan International UK and Wood for Trees, Salocin Group
Transform their approach to legacy fundraising by harnessing the advanced modelling power of Apteco’s Predictor bundle
Background
Plan International UK (PIUK) is a global children’s charity working toward a more equal world - one where every child can reach their full potential and every girl can shape her own future. Poverty, violence, and discrimination continue to hold back millions of children worldwide, with girls often facing the greatest barriers. For that reason, giving girls equal opportunities sits at the core of the organisation’s mission. The charity operates in more than 80 countries, striving to create a future where every child is safe and able to access education. Their work focuses on ensuring girls are free from violence, in control of their own bodies, aware of their rights, and empowered to speak up.
The challenge
PIUK had relied on an agency-built legacy propensity model to identify potential legacy supporters. While it did the job, it was costly, had limited flexibility, and restricted PIUK’s ability to adapt quickly. In 2024, they decided to bring this capability in-house. Their goals were clear: build their own legacy propensity model, strengthen the legacy pipeline to ultimately grow legacy income, and gain a better understanding of their supporters. To this end, extensive testing was required - both on the communication segments and on the validity of the model itself. A secondary objective was that by bringing the build in-house, PIUK would be able to reduce costs. Confident that Apteco could deliver what they needed, PIUK upgraded their licence to include the Predictor bundle.
Watch the full customer story
Watch the video, presented by Jonathan Gibbs, Analysis and Insights Manager, Plan International UK and Nick Cook, Head of Business Applications - Apteco, Wood for Trees, Salocin Group present how PIUK transformed their approach to legacy fundraising with the modelling power in Apteco.
The Apteco solution
With training and guidance from Wood for Trees, PIUK built a new legacy propensity model using Apteco. They explored both decision tree and profile models, testing and refining dimensions such as giving history, campaigning activity, gift aid, age and gender. The decision tree model emerged as particularly effective – delivering sharper segmentation, stronger predictive accuracy and clear guidance for campaign targeting. Crucially, Apteco’s intuitive environment enabled PIUK to test, refresh and adapt their models with speed and confidence. They could overlay results with supporter responsiveness by channel, helping them identify entirely new audience segments who had not been contacted about legacy giving for years.
The existing propensity model, built by an external agency, was based on age, wealth, gender, connection to the cause, and giving score. Leveraging the agility of Apteco in-house, the proposed design of the new model was more closely aligned with PIUK’s strategic vision of being supporter-led and insight-driven.
The new model design initially focused on variables that best demonstrated a supporter’s connection to the cause. These included, but were not limited to, the number of lifetime products (split across cash giving, sponsorship, and other regular gifts), number of campaigning actions, number of complaints, gift aid status, and age and gender (where available). In addition, banded variations were applied to reflect the length of time since the last gift or payment, providing greater flexibility in how these variables were combined to identify the strongest-performing model.
Due to the ease and speed with which predictive dimensions can be tested, PIUK was able to quickly identify the set of variables that delivered the highest predictive value. Over the longer term, using Predictor to create models in-house is more cost-effective, as models can be updated and refined as required at no additional cost. By contrast, changes to the external model would incur further costs if PIUK wished to amend fundamentals or request additional analysis. Furthermore, the Predictor model enables PIUK to develop additional models in-house at no extra cost.
The use of Apteco and support from Wood for Trees, have underpinned and advanced PIUK’s income generating programme. The addition of Predictor has transformed our analysis programme; with advanced techniques and digestible statistics, PIUK has the tools to be truly supporter led.
Jonathan Gibbs, Analysis and Insights Manager, Plan International UK
Jonathan Gibbs, Analysis and Insights Manager, Plan International UK
The impact on the business
This change gave PIUK full ownership of their modelling, reduced long-term costs, and aligned with their strategic goal of becoming more supporter-led and insight-driven. The results were impressive, and beyond the immediate impact, the project equipped PIUK with the tools and expertise to develop additional models at no extra cost, unlocking lasting value for the charity. By adopting Apteco’s Predictor bundle, PIUK has enhanced campaign performance, established a sustainable, insight-driven approach to legacy fundraising, and created new opportunities to re-engage supporters through the most effective channels.
Legacy intenders increased by more than 300% and legacy pledgers rose by 15% compared with the previous model.
Using their legacy ROI calculator, PIUK calculated that improvements could equate to £260K of future legacy income
Using Predictor to create models in-house is more cost efficient as it can be updated and amended as required with no additional cost
Apteco’s intuitive environment enabled PIUK to test, refresh and adapt their models with speed and confidence
Results were overlayed with supporter responsiveness by channel to uncover new audience segments who had not been contacted for years
Quickly identifying the most predictive dimensions allowed PIUK to optimise models efficiently, enhancing targeting accuracy and supporter engagement
Through the application of Apteco’s advanced modelling, Wood for Trees has helped enhance the utilisation of software in PIUK. This strengthens PIUK’s ability to realise its strategic vision of becoming supporter-led and insight-driven, ensuring decisions are underpinned by robust data and meaningful analysis.
Nick Cook, Head of Business Applications - Apteco, Wood for Trees, Salocin Group
Nick Cook, Head of Business Applications - Apteco, Wood for Trees, Salocin Group