Impact & opportunity of gifts in Wills for arts organisations explored in new report
Melanie May | 24 July 2024 | News
A report has been released to support arts, culture and heritage organisations in maximising their long-term income through legacy fundraising.
Produced by Remember A Charity and funded through the Chartered Institute of Fundraising’s RAISE programme, The Art of Legacies is free to download. It explores the opportunity for income growth from charitable gifts in Wills and how fundraising and development professionals at arts centres, galleries, museums, and dance and music charities are approaching legacy fundraising.
It shares market trends along with guidance and insights on how arts organisations can grow through gifts in Wills and build a legacy fundraising strategy, and tips on successful legacy fundraising in the arts.
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There are also case studies from arts, culture and heritage organisations at different stages of the legacy fundraising journey, including The Amber Trust, The Courtyard Centre for the Arts, Dance Professionals, English National Opera, National Museums Liverpool, the V&A, and Young Sounds UK.
Speaking at a webinar launching the guide last week, Emma McCormack, Head of Legacy Giving at the V&A, said:
“Something I often hear is that people do not realise that arts organisations are charities, and therefore don’t think of them when writing their Will. If, together, we can all work towards promoting the message that arts, culture and heritage organisations are indeed charities that need and value gifts in Wills, then collectively, we will all benefit. Because all boats rise with the tide.”
Remember A Charity chair Anaish Yilma-Parmar, Head of Legacies at the British Red Cross and Trustee at Magpie Dance, added:
“We know that arts, culture and heritage organisations have a really special place in people’s hearts. They’re loved in life, and they can be loved and supported in death too. There’s a huge opportunity here for us as organisations to inspire people to support us in this way, building that long term sustainable income for the impact that we all deliver every day.”
Research from Legacy Foresight shows that within the top 1,000 UK charities for legacy income, the past ten years have seen legacy income to the arts grow around twice as fast (10% per annum) as the average for that group as a whole (5%). Remember A Charity’s long-term benchmarking study has also found that more people are including charitable legacies in their Wills: now one in five (21%) UK charity supporters aged 40+, up from 15% in 2018.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.