What would legacy giving look like in Cameron’s Big Society?

Stop smoking. Drink less. Exercise more.

We’re bombarded with messages about how we should change our lifestyle.

But the Big Society debate is presenting another challenge: how can we achieve a culture change of giving?

The Giving Green Paper challenges the voluntary sector to find new ways of creating a society that is less reliant upon the state and more reliant on individuals’ support.

Take legacy fundraising, for example, which the Giving paper rightly singles out for “potential to go further”.

Almost three in four people in the UK support a charity in their lifetime. And yet, only 7% of us leave a charitable gift in our will.

Research by Remember A Charity shows that no single driver will create a culture change of legacy giving.

People’s circumstances vary widely, and the motivations and barriers driving legacy-giving decisions are diverse.

Any culture change campaign needs to be multi-faceted, employing a range of strategies and interventions.

The Green Paper’s focus on the percentage of legacy value going to friends and family compared with charity is not the big challenge.

It’s about creating a society where a gift to charity in a will is a normal thing to do.

In a bigger society, we could do more together to make this change.

There are arguably greater opportunities to promote will-giving where individuals interact with public services – from pensions to paternity leave.

Banks could be encouraged to do more in their branches on the benefits of giving to a favourite cause.

The private sector could support the legacy message through its charity of the year partnerships and with its staff.

Professional will-writers could also do more to actively promote the charity message. Less than a third currently do this.

Remember A Charity has made great progress in many of these areas over the past 10 years, developing partnerships in the legal and private sector.

By pooling our resources we have successfully built a consumer campaign that has stimulated change.

But in a bigger society that understands the collective role in creating a giving culture, there could be even bigger returns.

- Rob Cope, Director of Remember A Charity

Report reveals a £57 million drop in vital legacy income for charity sector

The UK charity sector could be facing a 'double whammy' to its income, reveals a report released today by the ESRC Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy (CGAP) at Cass Business School, London, and charity consortium Remember A Charity, putting pressure on vital frontline services. The report outlines a 3% drop, equivalent to £57 million, in the £1.9 billion value of legacy gifts left to charities in wills each year, which comes at a time of looming cuts to the third sector's annual £12.8 billion statutory funding.

This financial pressure on the third sector is also occurring when charities are being asked to contribute to the new government's 'big society' agenda. The vision is to increase charity and community involvement in the delivery of public services, such as welfare and health.

New research outlined in the report revealed that the 20 leading legacy-earning charities, which together attract 42% of all charitable legacies in the UK, showed a real annual fall of 3% in their legacy values in 2008-09. The fall has come as market trends undermined the assets and property values to which legacies are linked. If extended to the entire charity sector, this relates to a collective £57 million drop in income.

Cuts to the statutory funding of the charity sector have yet to be revealed, but a recent report by The Charity Finance Directors Group estimated that it would "fall dramatically". A 1% reduction will mean an additional £128 million reduction in finances.

Currently the £1.9 billion raised annually from legacy giving - the equivalent of over 25 Red Nose Day appeals - comes from only a tiny proportion of the population (7% of adults aged 40+ in the UK ). This is in contrast to the 74% of people in the UK who regularly support a charity during their lifetime .

Commenting on the findings of the report, author Professor Cathy Pharoah, Co-Director of CGAP at Cass said:

"Gifts left to charity in wills are such a crucial source of funding to many charitable activities that it is vital to keep a watching brief on their value in this uncertain economic environment.

Some charities depend heavily on the income they raise from legacy gifts, while others are increasingly hoping that legacies and private giving will help them weather any forthcoming public spending cuts."

Stephen George, Chairman of Remember A Charity, added:

"Legacy giving is the invisible lifeline for so many UK charities yet many people don't realise they can make a gift in this way; they think it's about large gifts, and is not for them. The truth is, that after looking after family and friends first, a small share of whatever is left can make a real difference to charities and the invaluable work they do."