Leaving a Gift to your local church
There are many different ways to leave a gift to the Church in your Will. Most people first and foremost choose to leave a gift to their local church. You can find example Will clauses and further help on this in the Your Will section, including how to add a gift to your local church if you already have a Will.
If you want to, you can instruct in your Will that your gift be used for a specific purpose such as youth work, music or maintenance of the church fabric. Many parishes prefer unrestricted gifts however, in case the project you specify has been completed by the time your gift is received and so that they can allocate your gift to the most urgent priorities at the time. Your local church should have a legacy policy explaining how it spends gifts in Wills, so that you can be assured that your gift will be well-used. If it does not, ask your PCC to consider the suggestions here.
You might want to leave a gift to more than one church; perhaps the church in the village or town where you grew up, where your parents lived, where you were married or where you worshipped in a different period of your life. Simply show the sample Will clauses or codicil form to your solicitor and he/she will draft the gifts into your Will for you.
