Legacy income up by 9% in 2024, says Legacy Giving Report
Howard Lake | 14 May 2025 | News
The Legacy Giving Report 2025 reveals that legacy income for charities increased by 9% in 2024, compared to 1.3% growth in 2023. Total legacy income for last year reached £4.5 billion.
According to the report, legacy gifts now constitute an average of 30% of fundraising income across the top 1,000 charities that received legacies. In some cases – animal, conservation and disability charities – this figure was as high as 50%.
One of the main reasons for the substantial growth in 2024 was a 15% rise in charitable bequests. This was largely due to HM Courts & Tribunals Service successfully clearing a longstanding backlog of probate applications. Bequest numbers in the year reached an estimated 145,000: this is the highest ever recorded.
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The Legacy Giving Report 2025 is the first report of its kind from the partnership between Smee & Ford and Legacy Futures. It is designed to offer the “most comprehensive legacy data and market review” available to support charities of all sizes, so is published at no charge. It features statistics, case studies and projections.
Key findings of The Legacy Report
The report reveals that:
- charitable estates rose 22% from previous year, reaching 46,000.
- the average estate size for those leaving a charitable gift was £599,000, compared to £394,000 for non-charitable estates.
- Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964) now make up 21% of all legators and “are set to dominate legacy giving by 2035”.
- the average gift values reached £65,000 for residual gifts.
- the average gift values for pecuniary gifts were £4,500.
- The South Coast and London remain the strongest regions for charitable bequests, with nearly 18% of probated estates in the South Coast containing a legacy gift.
- the legacy market is forecasted to reach £5.1 billion by 2030 and £10.2 billion by 2050
Trends and opportunities
The report also explores the impact of upcoming changes to inheritance tax rules and highlights opportunities for charities to engage supporters who may be motivated to leave a charitable gift for this reason.
Rob Cope, Executive Director Membership & Operations at CIOF, said of the report:
“It is also an excellent example of agencies working together to provide, for free, the kind of unique data and insight that can help charities grow and thrive, something the Chartered Institute of Fundraising is pleased to encourage and support.”
Ashley Rowthorn, Executive Director of Legacy Futures and Smee & Ford, added:
“This report represents an important step in improving our shared understanding of the legacy giving landscape. By bringing together data, analysis and real-world examples, we hope it will help charities of all sizes to better navigate current challenges and plan for the future”.
The Legacy Giving Report can be downloaded for free.
Legacy Futures’ Data Dashboard
A helpful and free source of data is Legacy Futures’ Data Dashboard, which describes the size and shape of gifts in wills in the UK, and how legacy incomes have grown over the past 30 years.
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.