In Memory Giving & Tribute Funds
In-memoriam or in-memory giving is the act of paying tribute to someone you have lost by donating to charity in their name. Keeping the memory of a loved one alive through fundraising is a great way to commemorate the life of a loved one.
Online Tribute Funds are a great tool for allowing your supporters to do this. An online tribute page is a place where your supporters and their friends and family can come together and remember – by posting photos, leaving messages, sharing stories or lighting a candle at special moments or significant dates throughout the year. It’s somewhere that they can share the fundraising that they are doing in their loved one’s memory.
Collecting donations at funerals is another opportunity for your supporters to remember a loved one whilst supporting a cause that was important to them when they were alive. To make this easier for your supporters (and to ensure you make the most of the Gift Aid opportunities) you can produce collection envelopes.
Legacies
A legacy is a gift (either a fixed sum of money, or part/all the estate) left by a person in their will. Larger charities get more of their income from legacy donations: make sure you don’t miss out.
Legacy fundraising is a challenging area of work as legacy gifts are often a result of an established long-term relationship between the charity and the legator. The very nature of this area of fundraising leads to sensitive conversations that some fundraisers find hard to manage. It can also be a very daunting area with the complexities around the regulations and legal considerations of leaving a Will and the administration of estates.
However, it is also a very rewarding area of fundraising; leaving a gift in their Will is likely to be the largest donation an individual can ever give to your charity.
For more information about how you can make the most of this source of income, visit the Institute of Legacy Management Guide to Good practice as well as have a look at the following resources:
- Chartered Institute of Fundraising’s Legacy guidance
- GOV.UK’s Raising Funds through Legacies Guide
If you would like further advice on running your own tribute fund, how to make the most from in memory giving or legacies, please book a free support session.
