Why make a will?
There are two great reasons to write or update your will:
1. To provide for your family and friends and make it easier for them to honour your wishes.
A will gives you peace of mind and makes it much easier for your family and friends to take care of your estate and be sure they are acting on your wishes.
2. To support the causes closest to you and allow them to live on and continue the great work that you have started with your support.
Gifts in Wills are often a huge part of a charity’s income and at World Villages for Children we are no exception. Gifts in Wills help us fund nearly a quarter of our work with the Sisters of Mary. They help us provide all the food, supplies and equipment needed to educate and care for the poorest children around the world. Any gift left to us, regardless of size, makes an enormous difference to how many children we can care for and gifts to charities like us are also tax free!
You want to make a will but where do you start?
Step one
Identify your assets and liabilities and estimate the value of your estate. You then need to decide if you would like to leave a gift in your will and who to leave a gift to. You can leave a gift to an individual or to an organisation – these are known as beneficiaries. There are three types of gifts you can leave:
- A residuary gift is the remainder of the estate once other gifts and payments have been made. This is popular because it takes care of your loved ones first and is not devalued by inflation.
- A pecuniary gift is a fixed sum which could decrease over time as the cost of living increases.
- A reversionay gift allows you to leave assets for the care of a loved one for the duration of their life. When they die, your gift will then go to your chosen beneficiary.
Step 2
The next step is to choose who you would like to be the executor of your will. This is the person or persons you trust to ensure that your wishes are followed in accordance with the terms of your will. People often choose a solicitor, professional will writer and/or trusted family member or friend as executors to carry out their intentions.
Free Wills Service
Once this is decided you need to write your will yourself or make an appointment with a solicitor to discuss your wishes.
World Villages for Children is able to provide our donors with the chance to have a simple Will written free of charge using the services of professional solicitors by being part of the Free Wills Network. We benefit from a discount rate in paying for the service on your behalf and it allows our supporters to write a will for free, this includes mirror wills for couples.
Using the Free Wills Network is a great opportunity to use the services of a qualified solicitor local to you to organise your estate and final wishes or amend an existing will. If you would like to use the service please get in touch and we can refer you. There is no obligation to include us in your estate but if you do our registered charity number is 1058973 and we sincerely thank you.
Once your will is drafted, reviewed and complete ensure it is signed, witnessed, kept up to date and safely stored.
Making a lasting impact
With a gift in your will to World Villages for Children you can make a lasting impact and rescue more of the world’s most vulnerable children. By funding their education you put them on a better path and provide them with hope for a brighter future, out of poverty. We are always so touched when our supporters make the decision to include us in their estate planning. Like our supporter Nigel.
What legacies have done
Gifts left to us in Wills by our supporters have helped us to fund school places for more than 170,000 children in 13 Sisters of Mary schools in 6 countries worldwide. This ranges from the Philippines, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, and Tanzania. In 2024, gifts in wills ensured that we could feed and educate more than 20,897 children in the schools. They also ensured that every single child had all the food, clothing, accommodation, medicines, school books, reference books and teaching they needed to escape their lives of poverty. Gifts in wills allowed us to welcome 6,109 new children during the year like Miriam and to support 3,896 older students as they finished school ready for work. They allowed us to transform these vulnerable young lives.
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