Should you include a charity in your will?

Key points:

• ‘Include a Charity Week,’ from September 4 – 10, 2023, intended to show Australians the joys of giving back from beyond the grave

• Former UN Peacekeeper Andrew Atkinson said that his children can’t live off of what they inherit, but it is a bonus

• He urged older Australians to consider giving back to those in need

Former United Nations Peacekeeper Andrew Atkinson is a father of three who lives with a terminal brain tumour — when it came time to consider his legacy on Earth, he decided that he would leave some money to charity in his will.

As part of ‘Include a Charity Week,’ which spans September 4 – 10, 2023, Mr Atkinson urged other Australians who were making preparations to consider bequeathing some money to a cause they support.

Andrew said that although he and his family were not especially wealthy, they were lucky and he had taught his family to appreciate what they have, particularly given what he had seen overseas.

“For me, when you have the opportunity to give to those less fortunate, well, you embrace that opportunity,” Mr Atkinson explained.

“Working in East Timor and Iraq, I was exposed to a lot of poverty, people who were displaced, that sort of thing. I certainly saw how lucky I was growing up in Australia. Several years later, I was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour, which I obviously got, so that made me face my own mortality a bit more realistically and [I] decided that I had to leave something for people less fortunate than me when I do fall off the perch, so to speak.”

Andrew has decided to include the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in his will, due to his conviction that low administrative costs will put his money to good use when helping the less fortunate.

“It was working in those troubled countries where I really saw how fortunate, as Australians growing up in Australia, are. There was a lot of infant mortality, especially in East Timor — I had a pregnant woman coming into a camp where I was working once and she was going into labour, she was semi-conscious, she ended up becoming unconscious during the ride down to the main capital […] She passed away during the trip and the baby died, also.

“It was just really confronting, as that just wouldn’t happen in Australia, those sorts of things. Like, we have greater access to medicine, we’ve got greater access to healthcare, we have greater access to transport — ambulances, those sorts of things.

“It is because of the lack of those supports that life just becomes so cheap, y’know?”

Mr Atkinson said that every person is touched or moved by different things throughout life and there are causes to accommodate whichever humanitarian interest people are seeking to support. For him, however, it was his exposure to those experiences that changed the course of his will.

“There’s a really good option to leave a donation in the will, because it doesn’t financially impact me now and my kids have been told, which I have [also been told] is that what you inherit is a bonus — you can’t rely on it,” Andrew continued.

“Leaving a donation in your will now doesn’t impact you now. It gives you that sense of comfort.”

Have you considered leaving a donation in your will and which charity will you choose? Let the team at Talking Aged Care know or read more about wills on Aged Care Guide.