Wills and keaving to charity

I have 3 DDs to charities.
Before I'm on my last legs I plan to donate specific sums for specific items or purposes to those 3 for either equipment or beds or training, not to go into an all-purpose pit pot.
I will tell them the amount, they will give me option as to what they would like for that amount and I will make the amount out to the 'seller' or training establishment.
That way I know every penny has gone on the gift.

We made our wills in 1987, girls were young, DH went abroad for work frequently. We left £500 each to the local British Heart Foundation. It now seems that the money went into the general pot when he died in 2011. Not what we wanted ? I changed my will 5 years ago, no Charity donation. I give now to those who need it ie Food Bank, Red Box for Schools and the local Hospice. My clothes and books go to charity shops.

I currently have not named a charity in my will. I do DD contributions every month to the local cancer hospital that my son was treated at and to an African charity as I am sponsoring a child through school and hopefully if here long enough through university and medical school. This girl wants to become a doctor and go back to Uganda and help her own people. I get letter contact from her a couple of times a year and sent extra once a year for her to have a Christmas present .

I also prefer to give to charity now not after I die. McMillan, Water Aid, Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes and I sponsor various people people doing charity events.

I listened to a Radio 4 programme a few years ago where the discussion was about Will bequests to charities.

One elderly person had been persuaded to leave a percentage of their estate (mainly consisting of their house) to a well known charity (I can't remember which) that she used to collect for.

The house was put up for sale by the executors and an offer accepted. However the charity named in the Will blocked the sale as they said the offer was not good enough and they had to protect the amount of money that could be raised for the charity. This left the family in a predicament as they had to renew the insurance and continue to upkeep the property for a further number of years until an offer was accepted by the charity.

A representative of the charity was interviewed and asked to comment on the stress put upon the family, and their suggestion was that if the bequest had been for a particular sum and not a percentage of the estate they would have agreed to an earlier sale of the property so they could benefit from the money left to them.

I am head of finance at a medium sized charity.

Charities are tightly regulated now. In order to comply with regulations they must be administered properly. If the charity's income is more than a few thousand pounds per annum, it is not a job for well intentioned amateurs.

Charities mostly (some not - they are called exempt charities) have to file their accounts with the Charities' Commission. You can look them up on the CC website. Look at the Income and Expenditure account and Reserves (particularly the General Fund). If the General Reserves are more than a year's net income then they probably don't need your money. Next look at the pay of the highest paid employee (it will be in the Notes.) If it's much more than about £120,000 inside the London area, £100,000 outside, they are paying too much and you should avoid them. Finally try to work out what they are spending on administration. It should be roughly 10-20% of their income. Much less and you get the danger of things going Very Wrong (think Kid's Company.) Much more and it's possibly being wasted.

Those would be my rules of thumb for working out where to give money.

Not all charities’ funding goes to beneficiaries in a direct way, cancer research, Alzheimer’s research, for example.
Another example : Each Citizens Advice is a charity, but does not give money to people. The overheads have to be paid, and there are paid staff too, caseworkers, supervisors, IT specialists, researchers, admin, but much of the day to day advice is given by volunteers. How do you quantify that?

I think if you wish to give money to charity you need to do your homework and follow your heart.

I worked in the charity sector for some years and frankly was horrified. I went from nursing to a large UK wide charity. I was provided with a lease car that was around 20k in value. The expenses I could claim were unreasonably high. I found out the first charity I worked for only had 6p in the pound that went to the actual cause! Ask the charity what percentage is used for the beneficiaries and how much for running costs and make your decision based on that.

There are lots of very good Children's Charities. Try Googling "Children's Charities" using the quotation marks, and see what you find. You could add an Area inside the quotation marks to find "local" ones, if you wish. National and International ones will probably show in the results, in any case. My hubby and I have listed lots of Charities in our Wills, as our family are already well provided for and have said that they do not need anything. Obviously, we have still left personal bequests, but this whole matter is different for each of us, and entirely down to personal choice.

a kind of anti-will you mean Hooty ?

To be fair I don't have a lot to leave anyone but would hate to leave my DS and DD with a mess to sort out.

If you have a straightforward will you could do it yourself online. The MoneySavingExpert website had a link to one last year on a free offer, worth keeping an eye out on there. I did mine and they were good I thought, they check it for you and ask questions (I didn’t want to include somebody). I’ve kept a subscription with them for £10 a year and it means I can change my will any time for no further charge.

Gillybob* Can’t you just name all your beneficiaries and then make a statement that you don’t wish to leave anything to so-and-so because of whatever-reasons, then they can’t make a claim later that you forgot them?

I know what you mean Peonyrose it's a real dilemma. As you wish to nominate a children's charity I'm sure a Google search will come up with lots. Have you considered Childline, Salvation Army or a children's hospice? I think you're wise to do wills regardless of the charity you nominate. My tablet also predicts words and changes to some weird and wonderful ones - some can be quite embarrassing if not spotted

Take care gilly, you are a good person.

I fund raise and donate to Mary's Meals as 93% of every £ goes to feed children in poor countries by giving them a meal at school every day. mary'smeals.org.uk

Probably grapefruitpip but I am past caring to be honest.

The thread is after all about charities and I am trying to explain in my own clumsy way why I prefer to "give" to local small charities rather than the huge ones.

Well said gilly. I wonder if anybody will jump on you and accuse you of virtue signaling. Oh how I loathe that phrase.

I choose not to make a named donation to charity at all really, although I expect the cancer charity that I pay monthly by DD have got my name.

Giving to my local foodbank does not make me feel warm and generous it makes me feel very ashamed.

No, the bigger charities help more people, not help people more. I’m suggesting that it isn’t more virtuous to do a good thing because it makes us feel all warm and generous in a personal capacity. It’s good to help people, full stop. If we make an anonymous donation to a big charity that helps a lot of people, that’s good. If we make a named donation to a small charity that helps a few people, that’s good too. It’s a choice each of us makes. The tone of many posters is that big charities are intrinsically less good. I believe that is the wrong way to see the big picture.

Not sure what you mean geekesse ? are you saying that the bigger the charity the more they help people ?

Well I would think that would be quite obvious, however, there are many small charities that make a massive difference to individuals who wouldn't get help from anywhere else.

I am sad that our local hospice closed due to lack of funding, I truly am. if I won the lottery I know where I would send my money and it wouldn't be to one of the biggies where the executives cream off hundreds of thousands of £££ for themselves before an ounce of real charity work is done.

Oxfam [or substitute the name of any big charity] make more positive difference to more individual people in a day than many local small scale charities make in a year. By all means support both or either, but there’s no extra virtue in choosing small over large.

I know you are right MawB but I have spoken to a few people about it and ours is quite complicated and therefore quite expensive. Both of my children's natural fathers are dead and my DH has brought them up as his own. He has had no contact with his own 2 children for almost 20 years (not for the lack of trying) and we no longer even know which country one of them lives in. We also have the business crap that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy...….

I agree with you Harrigran I would rather help people directly. I support my local foodbank and a woman's refuge too. I do pay a dd to a cancer charity but can't bring myself to cancel it.

You can get the accounts of charities from the Charity Commissioners website, although they do now charge a fee for downloading them.
It is worth getting the latest copy though and having a look at the salaries.
I agree with NaughtyNana about high admin fees. They may be justified. An organisation like Barnados might have high administration fees if they are dealing with child protection as that requires good record keeping otherwise court cases can be lost. Some charities are largely administrative in nature but still do good work.
Also have a look at sites like Charity Watch.

You can find the accounts of any charity on the Charity Commission website. There are arguments for and against local / national / international etc etc but one measure is to look at what percentage of income overall goes to "administration". This gives some idea of how much goes direct to the people the charity is helping. 0% or thereabouts on admin does not necessarily mean it's a good charity but high admin costs may mean there is a top heavy approach.
To give a plug to but also illustrate how a bit of thought and research can help, Samaritans has a central office that has paid staff but all the local branches are staffed entirely by volunteers. If in your will, you just put "Samaritans" the money will go to the central organisation (which is fine if that's what you want) so if you prefer to make a local donation, specify the branch you have chosen eg Cambridge Samaritans

Heartbreaking.
But Gillybob and others - do not put off making your wills. It need not be complicated or expensive, but to leave it to your nearest and dearest to sort out should you die intestate will be much more complicated.
And do you really want HMG to have it all?

We made a will several years ago during charity will month. Instead of leaving contribution to charity in the will I made a donation to Great Ormond Street Hospital, one of the charities supported in free will month. This worked out well for us.