Ashley Rowthorn, executive director at Legacy Futures, explores what the latest Legacy Giving Report reveals about the role of charitable giving in estate planning. With a resilient £4.4 billion market and a new generation of will-makers emerging, he considers why practitioners should look beyond tax and help clients think more broadly about the legacy they want to leave.
For many practitioners, conversations about charitable gifts in wills have traditionally sat alongside discussions about inheritance tax and the financial advantages of leaving money to charity. Those considerations remain important, but the latest evidence suggests that charitable giving deserves a broader place in estate planning conversations.
The legacy giving report 2026, produced by Legacy Futures and Smee & Ford, estimates that legacy income reached £4.4 billion in 2025. There were around 44,000 charitable estates – the second highest total ever recorded – demonstrating that gifts to charities now form a significant feature of the UK’s wills and probate landscape.
For advisers, this raises interesting questions of not just how much money is being left to charities, but at what point in their lifetime people are making these decisions, and the reasons behind them.
A changing generation of will-makers
The demographic picture is one of the most significant factors shaping the future of charitable legacies.
Our report found that the baby boomer generation currently accounts for 23% of deaths, but this is expected to rise to more than half by the mid-2030s. This points towards a substantial increase in the number of estates passing through probate in the years ahead.
The 2026 report also highlights the growing importance of generation x and the fact that will-making is happening earlier than many might assume. Analysis accompanying the report indicates that the average age at which someone first makes a will is now around 50. It also shows that, among those who have made a will, gen x supporters are slightly more likely than Baby Boomers to have included a charitable gift.
In a nutshell, the traditional picture of charitable legacy planning being something that happens late in life is becoming less accurate and a person in their forties or fifties may be making their first serious decisions about their estate while their family circumstances, assets and priorities are still changing.
This means that a will could be subsequently reviewed several times over the following decades, becoming part of an ongoing conversation about values, family, wealth and the causes that matter to them.
Moving the conversation beyond tax
The financial implications of charitable gifts are important, but positioning a legacy as a tax planning tool can risk overlooking deeper motivations behind the decision.
People leave gifts to charity for many different reasons. For some, it may be an expression of thanks for support experienced, or witnessed, during their lifetime. For others, it can reflect a long-standing connection with a particular cause, organisation or community.
The legacy giving report 2026 reinforces the importance of meaningful connection. Its findings point to the role of sustained relationships and trust in influencing whether someone ultimately includes a charity in their will.
That has implications for the adviser-client relationship. A discussion about charitable giving shouldn’t necessarily start around the issue of tax implications. It could begin with a much simpler question, such as “are there any causes or organisations that you would like to continue supporting after your lifetime?”
For some people, the answer will be no. For others, it may be the starting point for an important conversation that they had not previously considered.
Facilitating an informed decision
For many clients, their priority will be ensuring that their spouse, partner, children or other dependants are adequately provided for. Family circumstances can also be complex, especially where there are second marriages, blended families, vulnerable beneficiaries or competing expectations around inheritance.
The role of the adviser is therefore not to encourage charitable giving, but to help the client understand their options and make an informed decision.
That can mean explaining how a charitable gift might work alongside other provisions, discussing whether a pecuniary or residuary gift is more appropriate, and ensuring that the client’s intentions are clearly expressed.
It can also mean acknowledging that a charitable gift does not necessarily compete with family provision. For some clients, leaving something to charity is part of how they define what they want their wealth to achieve beyond their immediate family.
Starting conversations earlier
The scale of the legacy market makes this issue increasingly relevant. The £4.4bn recorded in 2025 highlights a mature and resilient market, with legacy income having grown at an average annual rate of 4.3% over the past decade. Health remains the largest cause area, accounting for 34% of legacy income.
But the figures also tell us something about the long-term nature of legacy decisions.
The legacy gifts being received by charities today are the result of decisions made years – sometimes decades – ago. Those that charities will receive in the 2030s and 2040s will similarly reflect the relationships and conversations taking place now.
This is particularly important as a younger generation begins to engage with wills and succession planning. If charitable giving is only raised when clients are older, advisers may be missing an earlier opportunity to understand what matters to them, and how those priorities might fit within their overall plans.
A broader definition of legacy planning
The growth of charitable legacies reflects a wider change in the way people think about wealth and inheritance.
For some clients, the question might no longer simply be, “who should inherit my assets?” but also, “what do I want my assets to achieve?”
That distinction matters. A will remains a legal document with important practical consequences, but the process of making one can also prompt people to think about their values, priorities, relationships and the legacy they want to leave when they are no longer here.
The data suggests that this conversation is becoming relevant earlier, to a wider range of clients and at a time when the UK’s largest generational transfer of wealth is gathering pace.
The opportunity for practitioners is to ensure that charitable giving has a place in that conversation, not as an agenda to be pushed, but as one of the choices clients should be given the opportunity to consider.
About the author
Ashley Rowthorn has nearly 20 years’ experience in the sector. He founded Legacy Futures in 2015 to help charities raise more through legacy giving and has grown it into the world’s leading legacy consultancy. Following the merger with Smee & Ford, he now leads the combined Charity Division, supporting hundreds of organisations with insight, strategy, and legacy administration.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of Today’s Wills and Probate
