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Legacy income for German charities more than doubled between 2010 and 2024, having grown by about a sixth in the previous 15 years, according to Legacy Futures.
And it is expected to more than double again by 2050, with the total value of all inheritances in Germany between now and then projected to equal €6.4 trillion, the report says.
Legacy Futures began its first pilot project in Germany in February 2025, working with 13 leading charities including Greenpeace Deutschland, WWF Deutschland and Amnesty International.
Those 13 collectively received €149m from 1,169 legacies in 2024, an average of about €127,000 per gift. This represented 23% of their total donor income.
More awareness, fewer staff
The report notes that the number of legacies to charities is growing faster than the country’s mortality rate (1.4%), suggesting growing awareness of charitable bequests.
However, there appears to still be a significant untapped market, with 82% of Germans aged 50+ saying that they had not seen any communication, and only 20% saying they were positive about charitable bequests.
It also notes that 65% of people in this age group do not yet have a will, but 15% plan to write one during the next five years.
The report notes that despite legacies contributing a quarter of donor income, the 13 charities in the project dedicate just 4.8% of fundraising and marketing staff time, a figure which has declined slightly in recent times.
The 13 charities in the project saw legacy income grow 13.3% annually between 2019 and 2024. This compared to 8.5% and 4.5% respectively for Legacy Futures’ consortia of charities in the Netherlands and the UK.
Fundraising Europe reported last year that half of UK millionaires have included a charitable gift in their will, rising to 75% for those worth in excess of £5m – and that the 200 largest charitable organisations in the Netherlands received a record amount of €464m from legacies in 2023.
Photo by Tobias Aufschläger via Pexels
