A government-sponsored trial has shown that the proportion of testators who leave a gift to charity doubles from 5 to 10 per if the will-writer asks them if they wish to do so
A government-sponsored trial has shown that the proportion of testators who leave a gift to charity doubles from 5 to 10 per if the will-writer asks them if they wish to do so.
The new study was conducted on behalf of the Cabinet Office’s Behavioural Insights Team, in collaboration with Co-operative Legal Services and Remember a Charity. Three thousand prospective customers were randomly assigned to a will-writer.
Half of these (the ‘Plain Ask’ group) simply asked the client whether they wanted to donate money to charity in their will. The other half (the ‘Social Norm’ group) applied extra pressure by telling the client that many customers left gifts to charity and asking if there were any causes that the client was passionate about.
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The results from these two groups were then compared with a control group of clients who were not reminded about charitable bequests at all.
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