Charities are set to experience an “exceptional period of growth” from legacies over the next 10 years, new figures show.
The charity legacy consortium Legacy Foresight has upgraded its forecast for charity legacy income over the next 10 years from £40bn to £43bn, according to a statement released today to mark the start of Remember A Charity Week, which encourages people to consider leaving a gift to charity in their wills.
Legacy Foresight predicted at the end of last year that the number of charitable gifts in wills could be as much as 50 per cent higher in 2021 because of a record-breaking death rate and a backlog of existing bequests.
But the statement today said the next decade was “expected to bring an exceptional period of growth, fuelled by the intergenerational wealth transfer from baby boomers”.
It said: “Appetite for legacy giving is growing and, despite recent delays at probate, the number of charitable bequests is predicted to rise by 30 per cent over the decade.”
It comes as figures from the legacy information company Smee & Ford show that more than one million gifts totalling over £23bn have been made to charities between 2010/11 and 2019/20.
A recent report co-authored by Smee & Ford, Remember A Charity, the Institute of Legacy Managementand Legacy Foresight, explores how vital legacy income has been in 2020 and emphasises how charities must collaborate to grow and normalise legacy giving.
Legacy giving shapes the world around us and this has been more evident during the coronavirus outbreak than ever before. While many fundraising channels and activities ceased, gifts in Wills – the largest source of voluntary income – sustained vital charitable services across the UK.
The recent report, Strengthening Charities’ Resilience with Legacies, features views from 12 leading legacy experts and findings from a survey of over 120 charity representatives. It looks at the shape of the sector now and possibilities for the future, including recommendations on how charities should prepare their legacy fundraising strategies for more uncertainty as well as potential sector growth.
“Legacies really did enable us to weather the storm. Because we knew roughly what legacy income is coming our way and because that income is such a large part of our funding base, we felt confident that – even if legacy values dipped a little – the money would still make it through. That pipeline has kept us going. It meant that we could plan. It gave us the ability to manage cashflow and some certainty at a time of uncertainty.”
Jayne George, Director of Fundraising, Marketing & Media, RNLI
A predicted legacy boom worth up to £40 billion over the next decade[1] presents charities with a unique window of time to act and benefit from market growth, according to a new joint report produced by ILM, Remember A Charity, Legacy Foresight and Smee & Ford.
Expectations are that the substantial uplift in demand for Will-writing coupled with the scale of inheritance anticipated from the baby boomer generation has created an exceptional opportunity for longer-term legacy growth. But the report also conveys a sense of urgency; a limited timeframe in which charities can act to benefit from this growth, emphasising the need for charities to continue to communicate the importance of legacies both within and beyond their supporter base.
With over 10,000 charities named in Wills each year[2], the legacy market is an increasingly competitive space, making it all the more important for fundraisers to focus not only on market share, but on working together to grow the market and inspire future generations to leave a gift in their Will.
The UK faces a predicted legacy boom worth up to £40 billion over the next decade, presenting charities with a unique window of time to act and benefit from market growth, according to a joint report by Remember A Charity, Legacy Foresight, the Institute of Legacy Management and Smee & Ford.
The report indicates that a substantial uplift in demand for Will-writing coupled with the scale of inheritance anticipated from the baby boomer generation has created an exceptional opportunity for longer-term legacy growth. However, it also conveys a sense of urgency, pointing to a limited timeframe in which charities can act to benefit from this growth, and emphasising therefore the need for charities to continue to communicate the importance of legacies both within and beyond their supporter base.
Earlier this week, a group of organisations in the charity legacy sector including ILM and Remember A Charity released a report on the future of legacies, Strengthening charities’ resilience with legacies. Projections by Legacy Foresight included in the report estimate that cumulative legacy income for charities will amount to £40bn over the next decade. –
A predicted upsurge in legacies worth up to £40 billion over the next decade presents charities with a unique window of time to act and benefit from market growth, according to a joint report by Remember A Charity, Legacy Foresight, the Institute of Legacy Management and Smee & Ford.
Figures from Legacy Foresight predict that, as well as a substantial increase in legacy donations in the next ten years, legacy income will double in real terms over the next 30 years, with it being the volume of donations that will be critical in driving future market growth.
But, while an uplift in demand for Will-writing coupled with the scale of inheritance anticipated from the baby boomer generation has created this opportunity for longer-term legacy growth, the report, Strengthening Charities’ Resilience with Legacies, also highlights a limited timeframe in which charities can act to benefit from this growth. This, it says, means there is a real need for charities to continue to communicate the importance of legacies both within and beyond their supporter base.
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A new report says organisations have a limited amount of time to access increased funds
A predicted legacy boom worth up to £40 billion over the next decade presents charities with a unique window of time to act and benefit from market growth.
This is according to a new joint report released this week by Remember A Charity, Legacy Foresight, the Institute of Legacy Management and Smee & Ford.
Expectations are that the substantial uplift in demand for will-writing coupled with the scale of inheritance anticipated from the baby boomer generation has created an exceptional opportunity for longer-term legacy growth.
The Strengthening Charities’ Resilience with Legacies report, which was co-authored by four major charity legacy organisations, predicts an escalation in the value of gifts from wills over the next decade, and that charities’ legacy income will double in real terms over the next 30 years.
The report – produced by Remember A Charity, Legacy Foresight, the Institute of Legacy Management and the legacy information company Smee & Ford – features insights from 12 legacy experts and findings from a survey of more than 120 charity sector representatives.
It explores how gifts in wills, which have raised an estimated £3.1bn this year, have provided greater resilience and stability during the pandemic, and advises charities how they can strengthen their legacy fundraising programmes during times of uncertainty.