A report from legacy data analyst Smee & Ford reveals the causes that the baby boomer generation leaves most gifts to and finds stark differences between age brackets within this cohort...
Data from Smee & Ford has found that the baby boomer generation – people aged between 50 and 69 – is leaving the most gifts in Wills to animal charities, followed by medical research organisations.
In 2017, there were a total of 1,676 bequests left by the baby boomer generation; 877 of those were left to animal charities (more than half the total) and 596 to medical research.
Although animal charities and medical research organisations traditionally received the most bequests across generational cohorts, there are some discernible differences between the charities that the early and latter segment of the baby boomer generation chose to leave legacies to in 2017.
Medical research
Medical research organisations represent the second most popular legacy causal area for the baby boomer generation, however, the figures show that in the 60-69 age bracket, 69% of bequests went to these organisations, whereas just 43% from the 50-59 age bracket did.
Hospitals and hospices
We can also see that although 48% of bequests from baby boomers aged 50-59 went to hospitals and hospices, these organisations recieved just 26% of bequests in the 60-69 age bracket. This may reflect the personal circumstances surrounding the death of these individuals and if the earlier segment had lived longer, perhaps their legacy decisions would have changed.
Culture and heritage
Another notable difference is the decision to leave bequests to culture and heritage organisations; just 2% of the 50-59 bracket left gifts to these charities, while those in the 60-69 bracket left 7% of their bequests to them.
Of the 1,676 bequests left by the baby boomers last year, 78% of them were from the 60-69 age bracket and 22% from the 50-59 age bracket. These findings are important to the charity sector because the baby boomer generation of legators is just beginning to emerge and understanding the giving habits of this group of people will enable charities to better plan for future legacy income. It will be interesting to see how these casual preferences evolve as this generation ages.
This data and more has been published in the Smee & Ford Legacy Trends 2018 report. You can download your free copy here: https://smeeandford.com/whitepaper/post?pitem=legacy-trends-2018
