Legacy Trends

Legacies should be an added bonus for you and your charity but with funding as it is now, in some sectors charities are finding that they need a minimum top up of legacies to be able to provide the service that the users deserve. Currently only 6.1% of the population leave a bequest in their Will to a charity, showing that this is not always a reliable area of funding for charities.

The typical profile of a legator is:

• Female
• Aged 77 when writing Will
• Dies when she is 85
• Lives in the South of England
• Has 3 bequests in the Will

Care should be taken if you are planning to segment your donor database based on this ‘average’ as it is not the same for all donors. It can be seen that age makes a difference to what type of charities are named in bequests and even now that people tend to have more iterations of the their Wills if a charity is named in the original version it tends to remain throughout the following revisions.

When promoting legacy donations we would suggest the following actions:

• Ensure that you are able to answer all questions put to you from your donors to offer reassurance
• Have a legacy page on your website detailing what donors need to do to leave legacy donations
• Use free resources such as Charity Choice to promote your charity and make it easy for people to Pledge or arrange a Codicil to their Will
• Communicate with your donor and prospective donor base more

For further information on Legacies, please contact Michaela Johns on 023 8046 1256.