Learning – More than just an awards ceremony

The Excellence Forum at the Legacy Giving Awards 

The Smee & Ford Legacy Giving Awards 2024  provide a unique platform to benchmark and learn about the incredible achievements of the legacy giving sector. More than just an awards ceremony, the day also provides a valuable opportunity to gain experience – The Excellence Forum – at which attendees can gain inspiration, share knowledge, and hear case studies of best practice that have emerged from this year’s entries.  

This is a unique opportunity to join shortlisted finalists, industry specialists, and members of the judging panel to examine the factors driving excellence, innovation, and impact in this vital and hardworking sector. 

Every Attendee Package gives you the chance to attend in person or view recordings of the Excellence Forum Panels*  to help you get the most from your Legacy Giving Awards experience – and enable you to take home fresh insights and perspectives from this unique day.  

Format of the Excellence Forum 

The Excellence Forum, starting at 09:30, includes three in-depth panel discussions that hone in on themes emerging from this year’s entries. The event takes place in a relaxed theatre-style setting adjacent to the main awards ceremony room. Starting with ample time to grab a coffee and a pastry whilst networking with your peers and colleagues from the sector – the first panel discussion kicks off at 10am.  

Focussing on three award categories per discussion, each panel will discuss the techniques, methods and practices that are enabling legacy professionals to go the extra mile. We very much encourage attendees to put their questions to our panelists.  

The panel topics for this year will focus on: 

  • Growing Legacy Talent – The factors enabling outstanding legacy teams to flourish
  • Inspiring Legacy Creativity – Making valuable connections with audiences and donors
  • Building Cross-Sector Collaboration – Maximising legacy expertise and capability to achieve

This is a popular element of the day, so please ensure to secure your place/s for the Forum when you book your place to attend the awards as seats for the morning are limited. * 

Post-event recordings 

For those who can’t join the in-person Legacy Giving Excellence Forum or wish to share the talking points of the live panel discussions with colleagues, recordings from all 3 panels will be made available to all attendees after the 18th of April. 

*Places for the Excellence Forum are strictly limited, and ticket allocations to join the Forum will be allocated on a first come first served basis. For the full agenda see here.