Living Legends return for Remember A Charity in your Will Week 2015
Howard Lake | 20 July 2015 | News
The annual legacy giving awareness drive, Remember A Charity in your Will Week, will take place from 7 – 13 September 2015. The sixth annual campaign, run by charity consortium Remember A Charity, aims to make legacy giving a social norm.
To do so it is inviting more charities to join to help all charities gain a larger share of the £2 billion left in Wills every year.
Charities joining the consortium between now and September 2015 will gain 15 months’ membership for the price of one year, enabling them to participate in Remember A Charity in your Will Week in both 2015 and 2016. Those charities will be promoted via the campaign website’s homepage and receive promotional materials and a campaign toolkit, equipping them for promoting legacies effectively to their key stakeholders and supporters.
Michael Clark, Legacy and In-memory Manager at the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, took part in the 2014 campaign week. He said:
“Remember A Charity in your Will Week allowed us to focus on the importance of gifts in wills for the Trust’s ambitious future goals, and our campaign led to 212 new legacy enquiries. As we strive to beat Cystic Fibrosis for good, the Remember a Charity consortium is a vital part of our legacy strategy to ensure that our generous supporters understand the difference they can make.”
Living Legends
[youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy8x2lpkLLk[/youtube]
This year’s campaign will build on the success of the 2014 campaign with its theme of Living Legends. This featured a 94 year old Wing Walker, an Ironwoman Triathlete aged 72 and an 80 year old High Diver star, all inviting anyone to a living legend by including a charity they care about in their Will.
Last year’s campaign was promoted by over 150 member charities, and received backing from The Co-operative, the Cabinet Office, Legal & General and the Law Society.
During Remember A Charity Week 2014, the number of solicitors and will writers supporting the campaign increased by over 50%, with over 250 professional adviser firms signing up to promote legacy giving to their clients.
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17% now say they’ve left a gift in their will
The consortium reports that its message is working. Now, 17% of people in the UK say that they have included a gift in their will, up from 14% in 2013 (source: nfpSynergy 2014, Annual Benchmarking Survey, Remember A Charity).
Rob Cope, Director of Remember A Charity, said:
“Remember A Charity’s awareness week has grown year-on-year and we hope 2015 sees our message continue to reach new audiences and, ultimately, lead to legacy growth. We are urging more charities to take part in the campaign this year and boost awareness amongst their supporters and beyond.
“There remains a significant gap between the number of people that support charities regularly and those that remember a charity in their will. Working collectively to communicate the importance and opportunities of legacies is the key that will close that gap and make legacy giving a social norm. “
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.