UJIA: The Promise

Context

UJIA (United Jewish Israel Appeal) is one of the Jewish community’s largest charities. Like many organisations, they faced challenges with legacy marketing—a critical fundraising area that traditionally suffers from staid, uncomfortable, and often avoided communications. Legacy giving represents significant long-term value for charities but often struggles to gain traction due to donors’ reluctance to engage with end-of-life planning and giving.

The Challenge

UJIA needed to overcome the psychological barriers and conventional marketing approaches that typically make legacy giving conversations awkward and ineffective. They required a fresh approach that would normalise legacy giving while motivating existing annual donors to consider making the significant commitment of including the charity in their will. This transformation needed to happen within a community context where relationships and social dynamics play important roles in giving decisions.

Our solution

We developed “The Promise,” a distinctive sub-brand specifically for UJIA’s legacy program that departed significantly from traditional approaches in both tone and visual presentation. The campaign deliberately avoided the expected solemn treatment of legacy giving in favour of an engaging, slightly off-beat approach delivered through short, accessible videos.

The strategic foundation of the campaign centred on leveraging social proof—the psychological principle that people tend to follow the actions of others, particularly peers they identify with. The Promise positioned legacy giving as something normal and positive that “everyone” in the community was participating in, creating gentle social pressure to join the movement.

This fresh approach successfully transformed legacy giving from an uncomfortable topic to a community endeavour people could feel good about joining. While legacy outcomes are typically difficult to measure precisely, UJIA calculated that the campaign generated new pledges worth over £1 million, delivering an exceptional return on investment of more than 35:1. The initiative was particularly effective at converting existing annual donors into legacy pledgers, creating a substantial long-term value pipeline for the charity.