People with “middle-sized” estates leave a larger share of their wealth to charities in their wills than richer legacy donors, according to new research.
Analysis by Legacy Futures and Smee & Ford of 145,000 bequests from all 46,000 estates processed that named a charity in England and Wales in 2024, found that estates worth £1-3m collectively left £1.3bn to the sector.
While £1-3m estates accounted for 27% of the total wealth analysed, they delivered a third of all charitable bequests.
By comparison, wealthier estates worth over £3m held 23% of all assets but contributed 12% of total charitable bequest value.
However, researchers suggested that some high-net-worth donors could be giving via foundations, trusts, or donor-advised funds, which fall outside Smee & Ford’s dataset.
Wealthier donors preferred cash gifts, the analysis found, while smaller estates favour residuary gifts - which tend to be more generous
It also found that high-value estates tended to donate towards education, culture, and heritage while less affluent estates more often supported animal charities, hospices, and medical research.
Meanwhile, 6% of estates worth £100,000 included a charitable gift compared to 29% of those worth over £5m.
Ashley Rowthorn, chief executive of Legacy Futures, said: “The £1-3m sweet spot is where legacy fundraising delivers maximum impact and charities looking to grow income from gifts in wills can’t afford to overlook the power of the mid-value donor.”
Legacy Futures and Smee & Ford, which recently launched their Legacy Navigator online platform, expect gifts in wills to exceed £10bn annually by 2050.
They reported earlier this year that legacy income for charities in the UK increased to £4.5bn in 2024 as the clearing of a probate backlog was cleared.
