# More charitable wills are being made, says Charity Monitor

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/06/12/more-charitable-wills-are-being-made-says-charity-monitor/
- Published: 2004-06-12T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

The latest survey by Charity Monitor has good news for legacy fundraisers.
Charity
Monitor’s latest research finds that the percentage of adults in Great Britain claiming
to have made Wills has risen to a record high. At 38.5% it is up almost two per 
cent since the last survey in December 2003 and up about 3.5 per cent since a year
ago. Projected onto the UK population this equates to 17.9 million Wills, up 1.5
million since last April and up 660,000 in the first four months of 2004.

 

 

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The new Wills seem to be coming particularly from men, 35-54 year-olds and from 
the ABs.

 

 

Even better is the news that the percentage of those Wills which include at least
one charitable bequest has returned to a record level. It was as low as 10% as recently
as late 2002 but has now hit 15%. It has not been this high since late 1997.

 

 

Consequently, by April 2004 almost 6% of GB adults had charitable Wills, up from
only 4% a year ago and 4.3% four months previously. The figure was as low as 3% 
in August 2000.

 

 

Andrew Papworth, who runs the Charity Monitor, says: “Even allowing for the possibility
of sampling variation and a freak result, this looks very promising. The projected
numbers are quite mind-boggling in terms of a growing market for fundraisers to 
aim at. A year ago the figures were indicating that there was a total of about 2
million charitable Wills and now there are about 2.8 million. It’s a great reward
for those who have been battling away to make the case for bequests as a method 
of helping charities.”

 

 

Papworth expects that the August Charity Monitor will throw further light both on
the strength of the turnabout and the types of individuals who are suddenly thinking
of charitable bequests in their Wills. The early signs are that it is particularly
the over 65s, ABs and men slightly more than women who are making the running.

 

 

“Assuming the trend is confirmed by future surveys,” said Papworth, “the prospects
are very exciting. To have achieved these results either a very high proportion 
of new Wills must include a charitable bequest or a lot of existing Wills must have
been changed (or both). In any case it suggests that it is possible to push the 
percentage of Wills containing a charitable Will way beyond 15% in the future.”

 

 

The fieldwork research for the April 2004 survey was carried out between 15 and 
20 April 2004.

 

 

 

The Charity Monitor was designed and launched by Andrew Papworth for the RNLI fourteen
years ago and has been running every four months since then. As well as data about
Wills and charitable bequests, the Charity Monitor collects information about the
spontaneous and prompted awareness of about thirty major charities, likelihood to
give and perceived effectiveness data for a few selected charities, preferences 
in methods of helping charities and newspaper readerships.

 

 

For some years the RNLI have allowed Andrew Papworth to syndicate the general data
from the Charity Monitor to other charities at about a quarter of the cost of going
it alone at full market rates. So far, five major charities have subscribed to the
data.

 

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