Charitable Bequests and Wealth at Death

Abstract

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Wealth and inheritance in Britain from 1896 to the present

“…It is quite possible that estates are left, not to children, but to more distant relatives or indeed persons not related. A small but significant amount is left to charities (Atkinson et al 2017). All of these transfers are counted here as inter-generational transfers.…”

The last will: Estate divisions as a testament of to whom altruism is directed

“…The few studies having analyzed bequests to charities have shown that typically only 3-6 percent of decedents have included a charity in their testament [51], suggesting that altruism towards family members and relatives is stronger than altruism towards non-kin. However, charitable bequests are more common among the very wealthy [52,53]. The study most closely related to ours is Smith et al [54], who analyzed a sample of 1,000 probated testaments from Vancouver, Canada, to test the predictions from Hamilton's rule [7]-that altruism should increase in genetic relatedness-and found that estate divisions are consistent with kin-based altruism.…”

Testing the Effectiveness of Fundraiser Job Titles in Charitable Bequest and Complex Gift Planning

“…Such gift types are not limited only to major donors. For example, Atkinson, Backus, and Micklewright () found that in the United Kingdom the median cash bequest to an individual organization was only ₤1,000. In the United States, several organizations permit gift annuities of only $1,000 or $2,000 (American Council on Gift Annuities ), and gifts of stock can be of any size.…”