Legacies, which involve a donation to a charity proscribed in an individual’s will, are a significant source of voluntary income for charities.
Charities can fundraise for legacies, and are sometimes notified by a future legator when a gift is written into a will, but often don’t find out about a legacy gift until after a supporter has passed.
According to the UK Civil Society Almanac 2009, the value of legacies in 2006/2007 – the most recent year on record – was £1.74bn.
There are two types of legacies:
• Pecuniary legacy – a fixed sum of money allocated to a charity in a will
• Residuary legacy – an order in a will to give to a charity whatever is left of the estate after other benefactors have been cared for
The RSPCA and three other large charities have issued a statement warning of huge implications for the sector if the RSPCA loses its forthcoming appeal against the High Court ruling that cost it a £2m legacy.
The legacy market is in significant strife and is unlikely to return to pre-recession levels for another two years, according to a report released today.
Lifetime legacies are a giving mechanism that have been a glint in the eye of fundraisers for years. But while fundraisers, politicians and researchers alike have expressed support for the major donor tax instrument, lifetime legacies have got people heated up. Celina Ribeiro asks what has kept the mechanism on ice.
Are your next big donors in Sweden? Austria perhaps? The law is changing around European residents being able to give tax-effectively to charities in other European Union countries, potentially opening up the floodgates to cross-border competition for donors.
The Institute for Fundraising has called on the government and opposition parties to commit to promoting fundraising in their upcoming election manifestos through a three-point action plan.
The RSPCA has lost a High Court battle over a disputed will worth nearly £1m.
The RSPCA could pay more than £1m in legal costs after losing a high-profile High Court battle to keep a legacy worth around £2m.
In a competitive legacy market, some charities are thinking outside the box to get at potential legators. NSPCC turned to pay-per-click advertising on Facebook for a legacy campaign, and beat forecasts by 300 per cent.
Remember a Charity has appointed a new campaign director as the legacy promotion organisation looks to move on from awareness-raising to changing behaviour around legacies.
Charities could generate up to an extra £74bn from major donors via two North America-inspired reforms proposed in a new report.
Nearly one in four British adults say that they plan to leave a legacy in their will, with the young and single particularly inclined towards making a bequest.
The government has rejected a European Union law which could have jeopardised UK charities’ legacy income.
The legacy market is unlikely to fall as drastically as economists first predicted, according to the latest report.
RSPCA adverts will now feature explanation that the charity does not operate in Scotland as part of a memorandum of understanding struck between it and the Scottish SPCA.
Remember A Charity has launched a new campaign targeting professional will providers just as a law firm warns solicitors against providing free wills for charity.
With the RSPCA losing a legacy tussle in the High Court, Matthew Duncan wonders whether more charities will face similar battles.
A proposed European Commission cross-border inheritance law could open up the door to charities losing not only legacy donations, but potentially other charitable gifts made during a deceased donor’s lifetime.
The RSPCA recently lost a dispute over a legacy left in a will worth more than £2m. The courts instead awarded the money to legator’s daughter. Here, Mark Keenan, one of the lawyers representing the daughter, discusses the finer details of the case, and what it means for charities. Legacies are not always an unqualified blessing for the charities receiving them. In an increasing number of cases, such gifts are becoming subject to challenge by family members who believe that the will does not reflect the true wishes of its maker. The challenge can be made on a number of grounds, such as mental incapacity, or want of knowledge and approval of the gifts made.
Gentle fundraiser, come with me on a quick visit to a world very different from our own.It is a nasty and cruel world where people hate each other and do ugly things, especially to their nearest -who are seldom, if ever, their dearest.
The RSPCA has made misleading statements in the wake of losing a High Court battle to keep a legacy worth around £2m, according to the winning claimant Christine Gill. Last week, the RSPCA lost a bid to keep the legacy which was successfully contested by the will-maker's daughter, Dr Gill (pictured with her father).
Short-termism is the new killer disease threatening charities’ survival, says Richard Radcliffe What is it about this recession which makes some directors of fundraising and some trustees make the most incredibly short-sighted decision: to cut a legacy fundraising budget? In the last two weeks I have met three charities where the legacy budget has been severely cut due to the recession. One legacy budget has been cut by 75 per cent.
Puzzled by inconsistent responses at legacy-focused supporter events, staff at Action for Children turned to social psychology and achieved remarkable results, as Matthew Lagden reports Until recently I managed legacy marketing at Action for Children. We knew that individual and home-based community fundraising supporters were more likely to leave a legacy, but they were very resistant to direct mail and attempts to send them legacy literature caused more complaints than positive responses.
Someone very close to me died about six months ago. Because she received care from a particular organisation and because I wanted to do something positive at a dark time, I did what lots of her friends and relatives did, I chose to make a donation to a charity in her name. I did this online and told them clearly the reason for my gift (they gave me a neat little drop down box to help me do so).
Figures from the top 300 fundraising charities reveal the latest trends in legacy fundraising, and offer insight into cause-related giving in a recession, as Charity Market Monitor author Cathy Pharoah reports. In reviewing fundraising performance, the current challenge for charities is to establish what is genuinely due to the economic downturn and what would probably have happened anyway.
People often want to mark the death of a loved one with a tribute, so Kevin Kibble suggests charities brave in memoriam fundraising and set up a strategy It is increasingly common in the UK to make charitable gifts to mark the death of someone close to us. Donations are frequently given in lieu of flowers at funerals, often to a cause relevant to the deceased person, or to an organisation related to the cause of death.
In July 2007 the Meningitis Trust launched its tribute fund programme. The launch of the scheme was meticulously planned to increase in memoriam income and offer a programme that supports donors and reinforces the charity’s values. With full organisational support, the charity produced a leaflet introducing donors to the concept of the funds and sent it to previous in memoriam donors.
Sir Bobby Robson’s JustGiving page has recorded more than £40,000 in donations since he died last Friday – the fastest-ever response for an in memoriam page on the site.
Spotting trends in major charities is a good indicator of what may be happening elsewhere. Using the latest Charity Market Monitor report, Cathy Pharoah assesses the current state of play In the current market turmoil, as the charts plunge up and down, the biggest challenge in planning next year’s fundraising strategy is that of getting any steady reading at all. Recession, yes, but how deep or how long is currently beyond safe prediction. The best compass is to look at the general direction of the market. And the evidence from the Charity Market Monitor 2008 suggests that major charities were already experiencing the impacts of recession by the end of 2007.
A new million-pound campaign will use humour to promote legacies for the first time in the UK. Celina Ribeiro discovers why consortium Remember A Charity is making light of death. We are all going to die. Funny, isn’t it? At least that is the hope of a new campaign which assumes we will be willing to laugh at our own mortality. In a distinct departure from the sombre and serious messages that have typified UK legacy marketing in the past, legacy promotion consortium Remember A Charity (RAC) hopes its new marketing drive, accompanied by a new logo and website, will prompt more people to leave gifts to charity in their wills.
Legacy giving is still ‘ridiculously low’ and legacy fundraising too often turgid, says Richard Radcliffe. Here he explains why more investment is needed to push legacy fundraising into a new phase of sophistication and donor-centricity. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a cult book of the 1980’s many of you might have read, suggested that every society goes through three phases:
