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I thought I'd follow up on how I wrote a will leaving money to EA charities, following my previous question about it here. I ended up drafting a will myself and haven't yet had it checked by a solicitor. I've gone down this route as I'm still youngish and so having some probability of the will failing does not seem like something worth spending hundreds of pounds to avoid at present - if I were 20 years older, I may have considered that worth it. For context I'm resident in England, and these steps are not necessarily good to follow in other countries - I can't say.
My process was to firstly get a free draft will from www.freewills.co.uk . I copied the text to a document I could edit and set out the clauses specifying the distribution of the estate, using wording from https://www.givewell.org/legacy-giving and https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/bequests, and including some extra wording about cause areas to allocate the bequests to, which I checked with GiveWell and GWWC beforehand. I also added sub-clauses about what to do if these charities no longer exist (just general instructions to say my Trustees should use their judgement and about how they could identify charities in line with my wishes, with a couple of examples - if GiveWell or GWWC did cease existing, I intend to update my will, so these clauses should only matter for a fairly narrow window of time and so super high-quality wording doesn't seem needed).
Following this previous Forum post, I added the following clause after the clauses setting out the bequests as an extra failsafe:
But if the trusts hereinbefore declared shall fail or determine then and in that event my Trustees shall stand possessed of the said residue of my estate UPON TRUST to transfer pay or apply the same to or for such exclusively charitable institution or purpose or exclusively charitable institutions or purposes and if more than one in such proportions as my Trustees may in their absolute discretion select.
What good solutions are there for EAs leaving money to charity in wills, in terms of getting them legally correct but not incurring large costs?
I've found this 2014 forum post that looks to have good info but many of the links no longer work - for example, it has a broken link to a form for getting a free will - does a resource like that still exist somewhere?
There's also the GWWC bequests page. When I tried their "tool", it directed me to an organisation called FareWill - has anyone used them and found it to give a good result?
I get the impression that the low-cost will services out there are based on templates for leaving assets to family and friends and aren't so well suited to having charities as the main beneficiaries - in particular, including clauses for what to do if the charities no longer exist and some broader instruction needs to be given (I tried freewills.co.uk, but it didn't produce something suitable). Has anyone found a will-writing service that worked well at a reasonable cost? Or is using a solicitor the recommended way in these cases, and am I wrong to think that would cost hundreds of pounds? [Edit to add - I live in England, so info relevant for there is particularly welcome.]
Edit to add some keywords for searching, as someone pointed out to me that searching for "will" brings up lots of other things!: testament, writing will, leave money to charity.
Normally I’d recommend freewill.com for this (which is designed with charitable donation as a central use case), but I see now it’s only for US-based assets
When thinking about whether to donate to Helen Keller International's Vitamin A supplementation program, I wondered whether this is problematic for animal welfare, since Vit A is usually derived from animal sources as I understand it. So I asked HKI and they said their Vit A is chemically synthesised without animal origin, though their capsules do contain gelatin sourced from cattle. My perception is that the use of gelatin wouldn't be expected to contribute a lot to animal welfare problems (though it might matter for people who never want to fund purchasing of animal products). I just thought I'd share this in case anyone else wondered.
I thought I'd follow up on how I wrote a will leaving money to EA charities, following my previous question about it here. I ended up drafting a will myself and haven't yet had it checked by a solicitor. I've gone down this route as I'm still youngish and so having some probability of the will failing does not seem like something worth spending hundreds of pounds to avoid at present - if I were 20 years older, I may have considered that worth it. For context I'm resident in England, and these steps are not necessarily good to follow in other countries - I can't say.
My process was to firstly get a free draft will from www.freewills.co.uk . I copied the text to a document I could edit and set out the clauses specifying the distribution of the estate, using wording from https://www.givewell.org/legacy-giving and https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/bequests, and including some extra wording about cause areas to allocate the bequests to, which I checked with GiveWell and GWWC beforehand. I also added sub-clauses about what to do if these charities no longer exist (just general instructions to say my Trustees should use their judgement and about how they could identify charities in line with my wishes, with a couple of examples - if GiveWell or GWWC did cease existing, I intend to update my will, so these clauses should only matter for a fairly narrow window of time and so super high-quality wording doesn't seem needed).
Following this previous Forum post, I added the following clause after the clauses setting out the bequests as an extra failsafe:
Then I got it signed and witnessed. See https://www.gov.uk/make-will/make-sure-your-will-is-legal .
Keywords to aide searching, as searching for "will" brings up lots of other things!: testament, writing will, leave money to charity
What good solutions are there for EAs leaving money to charity in wills, in terms of getting them legally correct but not incurring large costs?
I've found this 2014 forum post that looks to have good info but many of the links no longer work - for example, it has a broken link to a form for getting a free will - does a resource like that still exist somewhere?
There's also the GWWC bequests page. When I tried their "tool", it directed me to an organisation called FareWill - has anyone used them and found it to give a good result?
I get the impression that the low-cost will services out there are based on templates for leaving assets to family and friends and aren't so well suited to having charities as the main beneficiaries - in particular, including clauses for what to do if the charities no longer exist and some broader instruction needs to be given (I tried freewills.co.uk, but it didn't produce something suitable). Has anyone found a will-writing service that worked well at a reasonable cost? Or is using a solicitor the recommended way in these cases, and am I wrong to think that would cost hundreds of pounds? [Edit to add - I live in England, so info relevant for there is particularly welcome.]
Edit to add some keywords for searching, as someone pointed out to me that searching for "will" brings up lots of other things!: testament, writing will, leave money to charity.
Normally I’d recommend freewill.com for this (which is designed with charitable donation as a central use case), but I see now it’s only for US-based assets
Also seeking conciser templates. Dozen page will templates feel dramatic for young people and make me delay the process to not raise concerns
When thinking about whether to donate to Helen Keller International's Vitamin A supplementation program, I wondered whether this is problematic for animal welfare, since Vit A is usually derived from animal sources as I understand it. So I asked HKI and they said their Vit A is chemically synthesised without animal origin, though their capsules do contain gelatin sourced from cattle. My perception is that the use of gelatin wouldn't be expected to contribute a lot to animal welfare problems (though it might matter for people who never want to fund purchasing of animal products). I just thought I'd share this in case anyone else wondered.