What is a legacy and why do people leave them? This was a question I was asking myself only a few days ago, but since going on a course earlier this week I have learnt a lot about Legacy fundraising.

A legacy is any gift left in a persons will; an instruction for part of your estate to be given to an individual after your death, which can include a gift to charity. The legacy market is currently worth almost £2 billion which is almost 15% of all voluntary income, meaning that Legacy fundraising is the biggest source of voluntary income. Therefore you can understand how much legacies can impact on charities, helping them to expand. Some charities can rely fully on legacy income and without it they would be non-existent.
Even though 58% of people give to charity in their life time only 7% of people will leave something to a charity in their will. This may be for many reasons, but most of the time it’s just due to forgetting. Anyone can leave a legacy, to any charity, and normally Charities accept any donation you are willing to give them. Smaller charities benefit hugely from Legacies, as it brings income into the charity and it also brings the charity a sense of pride and gratitude as they know what they are doing is important and people can see that.
If you feel passionate about a charity then why not leave them a gift in your will? You can even have a say on what you would like the money being spent on! A lot of people who leave money to charity have seen a flaw in a system the charity provides and are keen to make sure the money is spent on improving it; which is a fantastic way to make sure something is being done about it.
People also leave legacies due to gratitude, tax benefits, they are thankful of the service they have been provided by a particular charity in the past, want to give something back to the charity, if they have seen the charity transforming someone’s life before, for self-recognition or just because if they’ve come across the charity and like their mission.
Another reason people leave gifts to charities is if people have no relatives they are more likely to leave a gift (s) to charities because if someone doesn’t specify where they would like their money to go to once they pass away, the money will automatically go to the government meaning you don’t have the right to say where your money goes after you die.
There are 4 types of Legacies pecuniary, Residual, Specific and Reversionary.

• Pecuniary is a fixed sum of money, the value of a pecuniary gift will decrease over time, as the cost of living increases.
• Residual legacies are a percentage of your estate, usually a remainder of your estate after all other gifts have been made and debts cleared.
• Specific – a specific item left as a gift in your will. For example, a piece of jewellery.
• Reversionary – a gift to a person or charity that is passed onto the beneficiary after the lifetime of the person who you want to benefit first.

The most common Legacy which is given to charity is Residual legacies, this is because if you have a remainder of money left after all your other gifts have been made, then why not leave it to a charity that’s close to your heart. If you want any more information on how you can leave gifts to charities then visit http://www.rememberacharity.org.uk/ .