Remember a Charity Week launches with dedicated legacy radio station

11 Sep 2017 News

Remember a Charity Week has launched today with its first ever dedicated legacy radio channel hoping to inspire more people to leave money to charities in their wills.

This year’s campaign, backed by Remember a Charity in Your Will, runs from 11 - 17 September and has been tailored specifically to “appeal to the baby boomer generation”. With that in mind, RAC today launched its first ever legacy radio channel: Last Pirate FM.

Fronted by 1960s pirate DJ Emperor Rosko, who will be travelling up and down the UK all week interviewing charities, supporters and celebrities including Twiggy as well as having discussions with members of the public, all of which are designed to encourage more legacy giving.

Many of the more than 190 charity members of Remember a Charity have also created their own “charity jingles” which will be aired throughout the week.

Last year, as part of the week, Rob Wilson, the then minister for civil society, wrote to 8,000 solicitors in England, Wales and Scotland, encouraging them to highlight “the opportunity of leaving a gift to charity” in their client’s wills.

Rob Cope, director of Remember a Charity, said: “Broadcasting from a different location each day and championing legacies in each area, we’re looking forward to bringing charities and potential supporters together across the country and to inspiring the nation to think about how they can shape the world they leave behind.

“This year’s campaign is very different from anything we have done in the past and is only possible due to the involvement of so many charities. Working collaboratively, we can really champion the importance of gifts in Wills, creating a cultural change that will take us one step closer to making legacy giving a social norm.”

Co-op offering ‘discounted will-writing services’ for RAC members

As part of Remember a Charity Week, the Co-op and RAC have also announced they will be offering discounted will-writing and other legal services to member charities.

The offer, opened today to coincide with the launch of RAC week, will see the Co-op offering a 20 per cent discount on will-writing services for charity members.

James Antoniou, head of wills for Co-op legal services, said the partnership was part of the Co-op’s desire to enable charities to access “affordable will-writing services for their supporters”.

“We work with a number of large and smaller charities offering affordable Will-writing services to their supporters,” he said. “As such we understand that there is certainly a desire for clients to leave charitable gifts of all types in Wills for a variety of reasons and this is something that the charities heavily rely on. These gifts can be small or large and they don’t necessarily have to be financial. 

“We’re delighted to be partnering with Remember a Charity for the fifth year running, as we share their aim to make will writing and considering leaving a gift to charity the social norm.”

Charity law specialists JMW have also published figures today which show that “twice as many people have sought legal advice about creating their own charities” so far in 2017, than did in the whole of 2016.

JMW said this figure showed that “individuals in the UK are being much more generous when it comes to supporting causes close to their hearts”. 

 

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