Include A Charity Week
16 - 22 October 2017
What is the Include A Charity campaign?
The Include A Charity campaign is public awareness campaign, run by a group of some of New Zealand’s most-loved charities, all working together to encourage people to include a gift in their will to charity.
What is Include A Charity Week?
Include A Charity Week is a week set aside every September that brings charities together to collectively raise public awareness of the importance of bequests, or charitable gifts in wills. By acting together, charities help more people understand the huge impact that gifts in wills have on the good work that they can do into the future, and how they can help people's passions live on.
Why is Include A Charity Week important?
Bequests, or gifts in wills, form the foundation of many New Zealand charities. Without them, many charities simply would not exist. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of New Zealanders actually do include gifts to charity in their will, and yet we are generally considered to be one of the most generous countries in the world. By working together, gifts in wills are growing and Include A Charity’s member charities are changing the way the Kiwis think about charity giving. In time we aim for charitable gifts in wills will become commonplace and widely regarded as a real and powerful way to support causes of importance.
What happens during Include A Charity Week?
Throughout one concentrated week in October, Include A Charity runs a large public awareness campaign to encourage New Zealanders to consider leaving a gift to a charity in their will. The Include A Charity TV and radio advertisements, and online advertising, continue to run throughout October.
But the work doesn't stop there. Include A Charity encourages their member charities to also reach out to their supporters (through social media, direct mail, events and online) and promote gifts in wills, including sharing stories about the difference that gifts in wills makes to their own work. So it's not just a stand alone national advertising campaign but also a joint promotion utilising the efforts and resources of charities across New Zealand.
Asking people to change the way that they have traditionally thought about donating and supporting their favourite charities is not an easy task and this change does not come about overnight! There has been no one single charity in New Zealand which has been able to do this so far. A collective approach to a public awareness campaign has been shown to work best, as has been seen overseas (including in both Australia and the United Kingdom where similar campaigns have been run for many years).
By acting together, Include A Charity’s members can make a big difference and get more people thinking about bequests as a real and powerful alternative to support causes that are important to them.
For Charities - all about joining Include A Charity