Legacy opportunity missed
Howard Lake | 19 March 1998 | News
On 2nd March the Will of the late Diana, Princess of Wales was published. You can read the full text, courtesy of a number of online news publications. Given the hundreds of professional fundraisers that the late Princess encountered in her work, it is interesting to note that none of them persuaded her of the importance of leaving a charitable bequest in her Will.
This raises the question of how to seek support from celebrity supporters. It is not unheard of for charity fundraisers to ask celebrities to write a Will and to include a bequest to their favourite charity or charities. No-one using a celebrity to promote a Will pack would make the mistake of failing to check that the celebrity had already left a legacy to a charity. Some years ago the advertisements for the NSPCC’s Will pack featured Sir Harry Secombe: a contemporary magazine article by the fundraiser involved implied clearly that Sir Harry had practised what he was preaching by leaving a charitable bequest.
Are there any other high-profile and wealthy charity supporters who have not been introduced to the idea of leaving a legacy?
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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.