Thread: They don't have a legacy to stand on. Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I went to a very interesting APCM (Annual Parochial Church Meeting) last night. (Is it possible to have 'interesting' and 'APCM' in one sentence?) Interesting for several reasons, not least because we had TWO elections, for churchwardens as well as PCC members, which I've never experienced before! However, what I'd like to discuss on this thread is a comment made during the Financial report, to do with Legacies.

Apparently, in my Diocese, the amount raised from Legacies has been going down and down, with only two of significant size ( = equivalent to the cost of a modest family home) in the whole of the county during the last year. Traditionally, the Anglican church has relied heavily on people leaving money to the church in their wills.

There are probably many reasons why people are not leaving such legacies anymore - perhaps it's due to falling attendances, or lack of trust that the church will spend money wisely; perhaps these people are donating to other worthy causes, eg. secular charities, instead. Or maybe people are deciding that the government will be taking enough money off them already for social needs and that any money left in a will should go instead to relatives.

What do people on the Ship think? Have you left a legacy in your will, or do you plan to? Would it be to the church or another charity of your choice? What sort of considerations helped you to decide?

[ 24. April 2012, 15:19: Message edited by: Chorister ]
 
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :
 
I suspect that the decline in legacy giving is an example of how decline is a vicious circle -- people give to the Church typically as a memorial. If they lose faith that the local church will be around much longer, they have little incentive to give to it for their memorial. Whatever your view of memorial funds, being remembered is clearly a significant motivator on the part of those who create them. Or so ISTM.

--Tom Clune
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
There are probably many reasons why people are not leaving such legacies anymore - perhaps it's due to falling attendances, or lack of trust that the church will spend money wisely; perhaps these people are donating to other worthy causes, eg. secular charities, instead. Or maybe people are deciding that the government will be taking enough money off them already for social needs and that any money left in a will should go instead to relatives.
Or just maybe the fact that the UK economy is depressed has something to do with it. I'm not sure the assumption that the pool of available money for legacies is untouched by the downturn is a good assumption to make.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
...the government will be taking enough money off them already for social needs and any money left in a will should go instead to relatives.
Yep.

I may leave some money to charities and causes I support that don't get much governmental support. My local preserved railway, perhaps. But I'll probably have given more to social causes during a lifetime of taxation than I'll actually have left in my estate when I die.
 
Posted by opaWim (# 11137) on :
 
Quite frankly I don't trust my church to spend any money they get surplus to requirements on worthy projects.
So we give a modest (but apparently still above-average) amount to the parish we belong to.
We give a multiple of that to organizations like Netherlands Leprosy Relief, MSF, DutchBibleSociety, an NGO giving financial support to retired missionaries, and we support a dear friend of ours who runs an NGO (usually on "empty") in the Philippines that does livelihood projects among the poorest.

And we certainly don't do legacies. We have heirs, and love 'm. [Biased]
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
My view, which may not be typical, is that I try to give as much as I can to both charities and church while I am still alive and have control over who I give to, whether for specific projects as they come up or for general funds. I'd rather do this than leave a legacy over which I will have no control. This seems to me to be good stewardship of one's resources.

However, some people may not be in a position to donate week by week, having little disposable income - maybe setting up a legacy would make more sense for them (but unlikely to be a large amount).

I wonder if one of the reasons for lack of legacies is that the number of unmarried spinsters (left over from war years) has presumably declined - large numbers of people now have offspring to which they wish to leave the bulk of their estate. Single women with no dependents have, in the past, traditionally turned to the church for their social life as well as the comfort of their faith.
 
Posted by Val Kyrie (# 17079) on :
 
I give money to my Church (if I've got it) right now, but anything I leave in my will is going to my children. The financial choices I've made in my life have always been made with my kids in mind.

Also, our "Parish Share" seems immense to me (given that we are in a "poor" and largely Muslim area)... That doesn't inspire me to be more generous, it makes me feel that parishioners are being unfairly squeezed.
 
Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :
 
We must also face the unpleasant fact that churches have not often been good stewards of the legacy funds which have come their way. I have had wealthy friends comment on the ineffective use of general funds-- those who are contributing in a major way are planning to do so with post-mortem strings, with money going through trustees (1 case) or to a tightly-defined purpose (6 cases), often with a reversionary recipient if their purpose is not fulfilled.

In two cases, I have been told that money is going elsewhere on theological or liturgical grounds (one I-will-not-name diocese south of the border lost $300,000 from a cousin on account of a flippant reply from the bishop over use of the 1928 liturgy-- it's going to the local community foundation instead). Prospective legacies have to be nurtured, and not every place has worked on this.

In North America, legal travails have not helped. About 10 years ago, when it looked possible that Anglican dioceses would be crushed by court awards related to residential schools (as was the former Diocese of Cariboo), some directed their funds to diocesan archives or to specific costs of parishes or choirs rather than into accounts which would be drained for legal expenses or court judgements. The situation with legal costs with TEC and the continuum are too well-known to bear repeating.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
There are probably a number of significant issues why legacies have declined, and are liable to continue to decline.

I think for many people, they want to leave their descendents the money or resources they have, to set them up - maybe to help them buy a house, or pay off their debts. The other reason is that the money a person may have left in their will might have been spent on health care or "capital release" schemes. So the money has been spent, and is not available for anyone.

For me, I will give money and time to organisations while I am alive, and when I die, my resources will go to my wife and children - my wife will need them to live, my kids will need them to pay off their debts.

The credit society we live in, I suspect, means that when people die, they have less money that is not already spent by someone than they used to.
 
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on :
 
I would probably have retired by now but for my dream of leaving a significant legacy to a good church-related cause (which I've already picked out).

My first library-director boss and his wife (also a professional librarian) took an early retirement ca. 1975 and moved to Arizona. He said that his will would begin, "Being of sound mind, we have spent." Ah for the good-old-days, when one's children could leave the nest in a timely manner. They could even do so without nearly bankrupting their parents and/or turning themselves into indentured servants next twenty years just to get a needed education. I was only five years out of college myself.

By the way, when American church people go south to retire, all too often they fall in love with a church in their new home and remember it in their wills, while forgetting all about the churches up north that had helped raise them and their kids. It's rather fickle of them.
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
1. I've never heard any church I've been in mention, much less encourage, giving to an endowment fund. Maybe current needs are big enough they want anything given to be available for current expenses?

2. The old folks in my family all ended up in retirement/assisted living/nursing homes at least half an hour's drive from the church they long attended (grandma moved 2 hours drive away), and were never (literally never) contacted by the church or anyone from the church, except for a once a year stewardship drive letter. For several years Mom sent a monthly check, then a yearly one, then made cynical comments about the stewardship drive letter being the church's only contact with her and threw it away.

To be fair, half an hour -- an hour round trip - is a long drive to visit someone who no longer comes to church (because she can't drive anymore). But there were also no pastoral phone call to make sure she was connected to a more local church, no longer sent the monthly newsletter, and few in the congregation remembered her as they too had moved to old folks homes or died. She was treated like someone who moved away, who was no longer part of the church she and her parents and grandparents had been active in.

Which in a sense is what happened -- old folks get moved away, they are no longer part of their life-long church. But lacking transportation neither can they get active in a nearer church. Whatever the nursing home provides becomes their church.

Dad left a (small) legacy to the nursing home. Mom's funeral wasn't even in her old family church because no one there would know her or come; the funeral was where her current friends were -- the nursing home's chapel.

Maybe a generation or two ago people grew old and died at home, still in the neighborhood of their church, still occasionally able to get a ride to church and be visited at home by pastor and friends from that church 'til the end, the lifelong connection was never broken and a legacy gift an expression of appreciation for the help in the last years. My Mom's last 15 years she was too far away to get to her old church more than the 2 times a year I could fly home and take her there. 15 years is a lot of disconnect, disconnect is not legacy-producing.

To be crass, if you want the old folks money ya gotta woo the old folks. That means staying in loving contact (not just fund raising contact) with life-long members who have moved to retirement/assisted living etc. Most churches these days seem to be focused on young couples with kids and pretty much ignore the old folks.
 
Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :
 
Simple answer from me: I don't trust the Church of England to remain a reliable means of the gospel for obvious reasons, so I have no intention of letting it get a legacy off me.

I think the point about cultivating legacies is worth further expansion however; the ancient tradition of parish visiting meant that the parish minister (of whatever denomination) would probably be in regular contact with the ageing members of the congregation. This has faded along with parish visiting - so we are paying the price for our change of priority on this issue. Actually part of me thinks this is a good thing; encumbered legacies imply an unhealthy degree of control from beyond the grave, whilst unencumbered ones tend to merely make it easy for churches to persist in a trajectory of decline when their financial failure should be sounding an alarm that something has gone wrong. I admit to being a hard liner here; if something is of God, it's His problem to provide the finances for it, therefore lack of finances implies something is wrong in what you're doing; as someone's who's seen God work in his life to make financial provision when needed by some quite strange means, I have no great hesitation in propounding this.
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I think there's a hidden message in how the church portrays legacies. I recently read this comment in a financial year-end report: 'Legacies were again minimal - £500', and thought how much better it would be if the report could say: 'We were extremely grateful to x for remembering us in her will and leaving a legacy of £500 to the church'.

There are ways, and ways....
 
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on :
 
The Anglican Digest used to have a regular column, entitled "By Will and Deed." It contained brief paragraphs acknowledging and describing generous gifts or bequests made to churches and church schools all over the U.S., including anonymous donations. People need to be inspired more by what can be accomplished.
 
Posted by Morlader (# 16040) on :
 
It wouldn't cross my mind to leave a legacy to a church. If there is anything left after the care home/nursing home has been paid for, then it goes to spouse, offspring, other dependents, after IHT [Frown] .

OP: I believe the two meetings have different legal standings. The election of churchwardens is, AFAIK, the "Annual Vestry Meeting", at which residents of the parish (and presumably, not sure though, electoral roll members) may vote. The election of PCC members is at the APCM and only those on the current electoral roll may vote, though anyone may observe (and I've never witnessed a challenge "Are you on the electoral roll?")
 
Posted by no_prophet (# 15560) on :
 
The church we attend has some investment funds, but relatively little has come from willed monies. Mostly form well-managed small surplusses. The church continues to have a balanced budget since the 1990s when we got it onto a proper financial footing.

However, the church is aging and the hall is worse. We have decided in the context of a surplus budget to consider selling off the property and thus not devote any substantial funds to property maintenance. It would take a mortgage and focus on worldly assets to replace and repair. The diocese is not so well managed and would like a cut of any proceeds, but we have seen one precedent which suggests that so long as the church as a parish is operating we are shielded from grabby fingers who struggle to pay salaries. Thank God for that.

The thoughts are rental of space, and I myself wonder about a strip mall, beside a convenience store and fast food outlet. We'll see what will happen with the ongoing discussion. We've been at it for almost 2 years, and anticipate 1-2 more years of planning. Again re diocese, the bishop would love it if our parish 'amalgamated' with a dwindling parish. But that would be akin to a marriage, and we're not going for an arranged joining. So far we seem to have done enough homework that we are in control of the immediate decisions.

My take then is that if program is taking up bequests and legacies, then the parish is not actually properly solvent. Such legacies are no longer legacies once spent. They are consumed like any other money. That would certainly dissuade me from giving anything in my will.
 
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :
 
I don't anticipate having anything to leave anyone by the time I've paid for my old age. I doubt anyone in my generation (born 1980) will. The generation who benefitted from postwar prosperity, low property prices, solid pensions and reasonable interest rates is passing away never to be replaced and churches will have to learn to live with that.
 
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :
 
Legacies can end up being near useless anyway. The small independent evangelical church my father-in-law pastors meets in a massive vanity project building constructed at the height of the Welsh revival and was left a very considerable amount of money many moons ago to maintain the organ. The now ageing, dwindling congregation are desparate to get their hands on the cash for more immediate concerns (like congregational survival) but can't, unless they want to renovate a musty old instrument they never use anyway.
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I wonder what happens when people leave a legacy to a specific church and then that church closes?
 
Posted by lowlands_boy (# 12497) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
I wonder what happens when people leave a legacy to a specific church and then that church closes?
Legalistic nightmare, in general terms. In the absence of clear instructions for it to go to a "successor" in the event of the "primary" recipient no longer existing, it can get very complicated.

There have been all sorts of cases like this that cause problems. We've had a legacy left for the upkeep of a manse, actually specifying which manse it was for. When that manse was sold, the money was locked up for a long time, even though there was other property it would have been useful for.

The Charity Commission have made it easier to free up funds like that in recent years, but there are still plenty of "interesting" cases.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
My will includes legacies to various charities and pressure groups. However, the money that is going to the church is earmarked - some of it is for the church in the slums I used to attend and which needs money to carry on its excellent social justice work. The other, to my current church, is ring-fenced so that it doesn't go on vanity projects but specifically to its youth work.
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
I'm hearing several main threads in this discussion, all of which might be true:

1. Most of us don't expect to outlive our money. Old age has gotten long and expensive, the economy unreliable. This may be a change from our parents generation; but wouldn't it be accurate to say few in prior generations left legacies to the church? Is it a major change for most people? I thought legacies were an act of the wealthy.

(1A. Most people today, even with two houses and four cars, and a retirement fund in the millions, don't think themselves wealthy.)

2. Most who hope to outlive their money think their kids/grandkids need it, there isn't extra money after the needs of the family as a whole are considered.

3. Many today distrust organizations, and that includes distrusting the church organization. One doesn't hand money to a group one doesn't trust to handle it well.

(3A? Many don't think the church is doing work worth the high cost, so aren't interested in helping keep it alive for future generations?)

4. Relationship with a church is (for many) no longer life-long. At least two of us have mentioned old folks moving far away from their former church. (Some of us are moved by our jobs every few years during the career, loosening the ties one would have with a church if one lived from cradle to old age in one village.)

(4A. Many don't go to church at all anymore.)

5. Churches are not good at encouraging legacy gifts.

If most people fall into one or more of the first 4, legacies will be very rare. If #5 is the main problem, it just takes some advertising.

If legacies are associated with lifelong singles (and those whose children pre-decease them), maybe churches should start encouraging people to consider the single life like Paul (and woo the childless widows), instead of pushing marriage! [Smile]
 
Posted by Ondergard (# 9324) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
I wonder what happens when people leave a legacy to a specific church and then that church closes?
In the Methodist Church of Great Britain, any funds, or proceeds of sale, or accounts or legacies from a closed church go either to the church to which the entire membership is transferred, or straight into the Circuit General Account.

Restricted Legacies - those given for specific purposes - are administered by the Circuit Trustees, whether or not the church in question exists.... and sometimes, those purposes are loosely interpreted. Thus, a small trust in a previous Circuit which yielded the princely sum of £15.00 per annum (at 1999 rates), was used to buy bouquets of flowers for the widow/ers of Local Preachers on the anniversary of their spouses' deaths, rather than the original purpose which was to purchase good quality suits for the Preachers... a prospect which was impossible to fulfill, being as how the days of the fifty bob tailor had long since passed.
 
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :
 
quote:

4. Relationship with a church is (for many) no longer life-long.
I think thats very true. For example my grandmother-in-law belonged to the same Welsh chapel all her life, a chapel all her family had belonged to since the mid-19th century (they were pretty much the place's hereditary organists). I don't think that kind of continuity exists now, at least not in the UK. I guess its just part of the way in which increased mobility has eroded traditional communities.

I also get the impression that UK denominations have seen a particular fall in legacy giving. Again I think that people under a certain age have a much weaker sense of denominational loyalty, especially now that denominations are often quite deeply divided theologically.

[ 26. April 2012, 05:37: Message edited by: Yerevan ]
 
Posted by Vulpior (# 12744) on :
 
I was a warden and trustee of an Anglican proprietary chapel in England, which ran as far as was practicable as a parish church. We had a legacy fund on the books. As far as I could tell, it was a capital reserve, which could be invested or be drawn on for necessary projects. It meant that we could begin X restoration before having raised everything. I don't recall significant additions to it in my time there.

Here in Australia, I was treasurer of an Anglican parish church. We had various dedicated trusts, not necessarily bequests but sometimes certainly in memory. Maintaining constant awareness of the source/purpose of those trusts, plus the original donors of various items, perhaps now redundant, was a pain in the backside. I would have been bringing forward a policy on gifts had I not stepped back from involvement. Others felt that donors o their families continued to have proprietary interest in their gifts, something that I consider to be completely outside the spirit of a gift.

That said, I do understand the various intentions of those who want to give for a purpose. It's a tough one.
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
If I was to consider giving a legacy I certainly wouldn't be doing it when I was young, as there is every possibility that I would move churches by the time I came to pop my clogs. But if revising my will when circumstances change greatly, later in life, it would be something I'd consider at the time. Perhaps many people mean to, but never actually get around to it.

We did have a legacies officer appointed at church several years back, to whom you could go to for advice about setting one up. But I've not heard much about it recently - it must be a very hard line to tread between making the option known, and offending people by making them feel pressured about such a sensitive issue. I know charities have had to deal with the same problem, and sometimes lose donors if they get it wrong.
 
Posted by The Intrepid Mrs S (# 17002) on :
 
Given how many people never even get to making a will at all, even with all the hoo-ha about IHT, maybe this isn't a surprise?

Having said that, our church has a notice at the back (near the coffee area) saying that it welcomes legacies and that the PCC would work with the family of the deceased to make sure the money was spent on something they would approve of.

Mrs. S, safely testate! (is that a word?)
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
If I was to consider giving a legacy I certainly wouldn't be doing it when I was young, as there is every possibility that I would move churches by the time I came to pop my clogs.
I changed churches (my previous one voted for resolutions AB & C) and simply wrote, and had witnessed, a codicil to move the lagacy.

I think people should make a will the moment they omn property or get married/civil partnered and then review it every 5 years.
 
Posted by Spiffy (# 5267) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by leo:

I think people should make a will the moment they omn property or get married/civil partnered and then review it every 5 years.
Yeah, I'm 32 years old and it doesn't appear I'm going to be experiencing either of those life events in the next two decades, thanks to student loans and an irascible personality.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I think people should make a will the moment they omn property or get married/civil partnered and then review it every 5 years.
Current inheritance law states that if I die intestate all my posessions go to my wife, and if I were to make a will it would say exactly the same thing. So why go to the expense of making one?
 
Posted by The Intrepid Mrs S (# 17002) on :
 
So you can make provision for the possibility that a) Mrs M dies first, or b) you die at the same time?
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Intrepid Mrs S:
So you can make provision for the possibility that a) Mrs M dies first, or b) you die at the same time?
a) I'd just leave it all to my parents/brother - which is what the law currently does if I don't make a will.

b) see (a), but split between our two families.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
(to be fair, if we both died tomorrow virtually all of it would go to the bank anyway - we haven't built up much equity in the house yet...)
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I think people should make a will the moment they omn property or get married/civil partnered and then review it every 5 years.
Current inheritance law states that if I die intestate all my posessions go to my wife, and if I were to make a will it would say exactly the same thing. So why go to the expense of making one?
We didn't make a will at all until after the children were born. Then you get to thinking it's important to make provision. You can write into your will such things as who will bring them up if you both die. It still seemed to long in the future though to be making hard-and-fast decisions about which specific charities to support.
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
A friend taught me a lot of us who "own nothing" are worth a lot at the moment of death. If the job provides life insurance, if you have an accidental death policy, these and the retirement fund might have their own beneficiary designations.

But two other sources of potential money don't --
if you get hit by a truck and your estate sues for the value of your life cut short, also if your parents might leave you an inheritance, that's money your will should address.

As to H & W dying together, often one hangs on a day or two longer than the other. If it all goes to spouse at your death, then at the spouses death a few days after yours it all goes to the spouse's family none to yours. Will's I've seen address that by defining any deaths within 30 days of each other from the same causal event as "simultaneous" so the estate left after the traffic accident is divided among the two families instead of the family of the one who took a few days -- or hours -- longer to die.

I asked a "trusts and estates" lawyer if those will forms you buy in the business store or on disc at the computer store are valid. He wrinkled his nose but said yes, if they do what you want. Maybe for most of us they might do the job?

Where I live, a simple will "everything to my wife Judy" is cheaper to handle than dying intestate, I don't know if that's true everywhere. From what I've seen, items that don't have registered ownership go to whoever grabs them, the issue is ease and costs of proving who has the right to have registered titles transferred to whom.

Having no descendents, I get to be one of those little old ladies who changes her will at whim based on who is nice to me or isn't, tee hee.
 
Posted by Chamois (# 16204) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Where I live, a simple will "everything to my wife Judy" is cheaper to handle than dying intestate
I don't know if it's cheaper in the UK, but it's certainly a heck of a lot easier for the people inheriting.

When somebody dies intestate the tax man moves in, the default heirs have to do a lot of tedious work proving the value of the estate, and it takes a long time before they can get their hands on the deceased's property. For a dependent spouse or children the financial strain of the delay can be serious.

The standard forms you can buy are completely valid if filled in and witnessed properly (the form tells you how to do this). Lawyers don't like them because they don't get a fee!
 
Posted by M. (# 3291) on :
 
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Current inheritance law states that if I die intestate all my posessions go to my wife
Might be true in your circumstances but not in all - if you have children, as I recall (IAALBNOTKAI*), it's something like the first £250,000 and a life interest in half the rest - this could be wrong, I'm going from (ancient) memory. Also how you hold your house will matter as well (whether owned jointly - ie, you both own all of it - or in common - ie, you each own a share of it).

It's sometimes just simpler to have a will.

M.

*I am a lawyer but not one that knows about inheritance.
 
Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
My husband died unexpectedly without a will, but there wasn't much of a problem. Our house and all our other assets were in both our names with right of survivorship. The only assets in his name were his old car and his bank account.

Because the total value of the estate was under five thousand dollars, the court appointed me administrator of the estate. The only cost to me was the lawyer's fee, which was not very high.

Moo
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
The warning we got from the solicitor was to make sure, if your partner dies and you remarry, that you make a new will to include your offspring. Otherwise the new partner could inherit everything when you die, and your children are left nothing. Apparently, most people don't think of this if they marry again.
 


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