The two most significant steps which you can take to increase your Church’s income are to maximise planned giving and to encourage your congregation to include legacies to your Church is their wills.
Watch our 60 minute webinar with Eleanor Stead of the national Church of England Giving team on how to secure more legacies:
Legacies - the opportunity for your church
Members of your congregation will receive countless invitations to leave legacies to local and national charities, but many may be unaware of the opportunity to leave a legacy to your Church. Some may not realise that your PCC is a charity, to which they can gift a tax-relieved legacy. Others may not realise that the work of God through your Church needs funding and that their legacy gift could have a major impact, blessing generations to come.
By completing the following three steps, you can encourage gifts, increase donor confidence in the process of leaving a legacy, and ensure that, when it comes to the Church receiving the legacy, the process is as straightforward as possible.
Free will writing
Will writing can often seem like a time-consuming and difficult thing to do – and that’s a big reason why many people put it off.
The Church of England has partnered with Farewill to offer a free online will writing service. This is a service for free will-writing with no obligation to leave a gift to the local Church. For those who do, it offers a simple process to enable them to do so.
To get started simply by sharing this link with members of your community, making clear that ‘This service will help you to write your own will but does not provide legal or financial advice. The Church of England contributes to the cost of this service, so will-writing is free to you, but the service is provided by Farewill Ltd which is independent of the Church of England, works with a wide range of charities and is solely responsible for the service it provides.
Leaving a legacy – information for donors
If you are thinking about leaving money to a church, contact them and let them know about your intentions. All our churches and their contact details can be found by searching here.
Got questions?
Contact David Senior, Mission Enabler for Stewardship and Evangelism.