The Greater Vancouver Food Bank (GVFB) has been serving communities across Metro Vancouver since 1983. Today, the organization supports more than 800,000 client visits each year across Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, and the North Shore, providing healthy, nutritious food to individuals and families while working toward a future where everyone in British Columbia has access to healthy food.

Beyond food distribution, GVFB partners with more than 160 community organizations, supports specialized nutrition programs for children and seniors, and connects clients with employment, settlement, financial, and mental health services through its FRESH Start program.

Legacy giving has long been an important part of GVFB's fundraising strategy, providing supporters with an opportunity to make a lasting impact on food security in their community.

Results at a Glance

Since partnering with Epilogue, the Greater Vancouver Food Bank has:

• Generated 41 confirmed gifts in Wills with an estimated future value of $6.6 million.

• Gained meaningful visibility into donor engagement and legacy giving activity.

• Reached supporters through a multi-channel legacy giving strategy, including email, direct mail, surveys, telephone outreach, website content, magazines, and digital campaigns.

• Increased confidence promoting legacy giving while simplifying the estate planning experience for donors.

Q&A with the Greater Vancouver Food Bank

What role does legacy giving play in your fundraising strategy?

Legacy giving is the natural culmination of a donor's relationship with us. It's where many of our most committed supporters arrive after years of giving, and we see it as the deepest expression of that relationship rather than a standalone fundraising program.

Our monthly giving program is one of the strongest pathways into legacy giving. We currently have more than 6,800 monthly donors, and their long-term commitment to our mission makes them ideal legacy prospects. As those relationships grow over time, conversations about gifts in Wills become a natural next step.

What did your legacy giving program look like before Epilogue?

Before Epilogue, we promoted legacy giving through direct mail, legacy surveys every few years, educational events like our Virtual Tea, and our partnership with the Free Wills Network.

The challenge was that once we encouraged someone to speak with their lawyer and begin their estate planning, we largely lost sight of what happened next. We had no reliable way to know whether someone had started their Will, whether they had included a gift to GVFB, or what that future gift might be worth.

Without that visibility, it was difficult to measure which activities were working, forecast future revenue, or build a meaningful long-term legacy pipeline.

What prompted you to look for a new approach?

We wanted to better understand where donors were in their legacy giving journey, track expected future gifts, and measure which fundraising strategies were actually generating results.

Ultimately, we wanted a program that was easier for both our supporters and our fundraising team.

Why did you choose Epilogue?

Epilogue stood out because it felt like it had been designed with both charities and donors in mind.

From a donor perspective, creating a Will is straightforward, affordable, and completely online. Donors can log in at any time to check their progress, which gives them confidence throughout the process.

For our team, the reporting and campaign tracking capabilities were incredibly valuable. Being able to assign tracking codes to different campaigns finally gave us clear insight into which outreach efforts were driving results.

How was the implementation process?

Getting started was refreshingly easy.

The onboarding process was smooth, and everything was clearly explained. Rather than feeling like a large technology implementation, it felt manageable from day one.

One thing that really impressed us was how much educational content is built directly into the Will-making experience. We actually completed the process ourselves to understand what donors would see, and we came away feeling that supporters are guided every step of the way.

How quickly were you able to begin promoting the program?

Very quickly.

We launched Epilogue in July 2024. Shortly afterward, we updated our legacy giving website and brochures, and by August we had already mailed our annual legacy survey. Since then we've continued promoting the program through a variety of channels, including our website, email, telephone outreach, magazine advertising, direct mail, and digital campaigns.

Which marketing strategies have worked best?

We've promoted Epilogue through email, direct mail, legacy surveys, our website, telefundraising, magazine advertising, and digital campaigns.

Our telephone campaign has been particularly effective at generating awareness and driving supporters to our website.

One of the features we've found most valuable is Epilogue's campaign tracking. It allows us to see exactly which channels are performing well so we can continually improve our marketing efforts.

How have donors responded?

One thing that has really stood out is what we haven't heard.

We receive very few questions about how to use Epilogue because supporters generally find the platform intuitive and easy to navigate.

What we do hear is appreciation for being able to complete their Will from the comfort of their own home, on their own schedule, without feeling rushed or pressured.

What results have you seen?

The results came quickly following our legacy survey campaign.

To date, we've generated 39 confirmed gifts in Wills with an estimated future value of more than $6.6 million.

Just as importantly, we now have visibility into donor engagement throughout the process. Legacy giving is much easier to measure, track, and report on than it was before.

Has Epilogue changed the way your team approaches legacy giving?

Absolutely.

Legacy giving has traditionally been viewed as a specialized area of fundraising that requires significant estate planning knowledge. Epilogue removes much of that complexity.

Knowing that supporters can easily create or update their Will online gives our team greater confidence when introducing legacy giving. Instead of focusing on legal processes and administrative hurdles, we're able to spend more time talking about the impact a future gift can have on our mission.

We've also noticed increasing engagement from younger donors—particularly people between the ages of 30 and 45—which has been an encouraging trend for the long-term growth of our legacy program.

How do you see this shaping your fundraising strategy going forward?

We have much greater confidence promoting legacy giving than we did before.

By reducing many of the traditional administrative and legal barriers, Epilogue has made legacy giving more approachable for both our supporters and our team. We expect it to remain an important part of our fundraising strategy for years to come.

Would you recommend Epilogue to other charities?

Absolutely.

For organizations looking to grow their legacy giving program while creating a better experience for donors, we'd absolutely recommend Epilogue.