Record-breaking Will Aid campaign
5 Jul 05
Donations up 40% as over 30,000 make new wills
The 2004 Will Aid campaign broke all records, figures released by the organisers show.
The November campaign, under which participating solicitors prepared wills in return for clients making a donation to the charity rather than paying a fee, saw over 30,000 people across the UK take up the offer, a rised of 20% over the last campaign in 2002. And donations totalled a massive £570,000, which rose to £685,000 when gift aid was taken into account - up over 40% on last time.
A further £5.2 million was pledged in legacies.
The biggest single contributing firm was Scottish solicitors Thortons, who have five offices in Tayside and Edinburgh. Managing partner Nick Barclay said: "We’re a large firm with 5 offices and 25 partners. Most of our work is with private clients. We ask the local press to cover the campaign and take advertising space ourselves. We try to encourage everyone to make a will, and as a result, we get lots of clients through the door in November."