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Gifts in Wills

More and more people are leaving a sum of money in their wills as a gift to a charity as a way of donating that can provide long term benefits without impacting on their current financial position.

Leaving a Gift to The Gatehouse in your Will
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Remember a Charity Week  - 7th to 13th September 2026

This year the national campaign Remember a Charity Week to encourage people to leave a Gift in their Will is running from 7th to 13th September, and we'll be featuring it heavily on our News page and our social media accounts.

Alongside that campaign is a chance to register your Will free of charge with the National Will Register by using the code RACWeek2026. This offer runs throughout the whole of September and saves you £30 on the normal price. Registering your Will in this way only takes a few seconds and provides the following benefits:

  • Peace of mind: if the will is lost, misplaced or forgotten over the passage of time, it can be found instantly.
  • Cost-free advantage: save money while adding an essential layer of security to your estate plans.
  • Secure and confidential: Information stored is purely locational, ensuring both protection and privacy.

 

Helping to fund the Gatehouse over the long term

At the Gatehouse we are continually looking at ways to both expand the range of our service offer, and to identify additional target groups of beneficiaries. Over the past few years that strategy has led to our costs more than doubling, and we expect them to continue rising steeply as we implement our plans for the future.

Although we obtain funds from many different sources, including grants from charitable trusts and support from commercial organisations, a significant proportion of our funding comes from donations by local residents and community organisations. We are hugely thankful for your generosity, which has enabled us to achieve so much already in support of Oxford’s homeless and vulnerably housed community.

Now, as we look towards securing a stable financial position over the long term that will enable us to achieve our Vision for the charity, it is becoming more and more important to highlight the opportunity for people to leave a Gift in their Will. We have partnered with the organisation Remember a Charity to help spread this message and to provide additional helpful information and advice to people thinking about leaving a Gift in their Will. See the Gatehouse page on the Remember a Charity website.

If you would like to research this subject more fully you can find a number of links to useful information provided by both Remember a Charity and the UK Government at the bottom of this page.

Why people choose to leave a Gift in their Will

There are three good reasons why many people choose to leave a Gift to charity in their Will:

  1. Unlike normal donations there will be no impact on your current finances, which can be particularly important at times when paying your bills is a priority and there is little spare cash to give to charities.
  2. You can choose as big or as small a sum as you like, either as a lump sum or as a percentage of the value of your estate.
  3. It is a very simple process, especially if you are adding a Gift to a Will that you already have in place.

 

What would you need to do to Leave a Gift to the Gatehouse in your Will?

Firstly decide how much you want to leave to the Gatehouse, and how much to other charities and beneficiaries. For example, leaving as little as 1% to the Gatehouse would allow you to leave 99% to those close to you. Even if you raised that to 5% then other beneficiaries would still receive 95%.

Secondly we recommend that you talk to a Solicitor or other professional Willwriter, either to add a Gift to a Will that you already have in place, or to draw up a Will if you haven’t already written one.

If you don’t already know a Solicitor or Willwriter and need to find one in your area then there are a number of options. Please note that the Gatehouse do not recommend the use of any specific provider listed below or on the linked websites. It is down to each individual to identify a Solicitor or Willwriter who will match their own personal requirements. 

One option is to use the Find a Solicitor function on the Law Society website. Simply select ‘wills, trusts and probate’ under ‘your legal issue’, add your location and search to produce a list of nearby Solicitors.
Find a Solicitor on The Law Society website
Alternatively you could search for members of either the Institute of Professional Willwriters or the Society of Will Writers on the following websites.
Find a Willwriter on the Insitute of Professional Willwriters website
Find a Willwriter on the Society of Will Writers website
Another option is to use the Co-operative Legal Services. A discounted price is available through our Remember a Charity membership. This can be taken up by either phoning the Co-op on 0330 606 9578 and quoting the code RACWILLS01 or using the link below. 
Online Co-operative Legal Services discounted will offer 

When you discuss this with your Solicitor or Willwriter they will need to know how much you want to leave, and the following two items of information:

  1. Our full charity name, which is The Gatehouse
  2. Our registered charity number 1216065

Please note that the above details have been updated following the change in charity structure to a CIO in August 2026. If you have already set up a Gift in your Will using our previous charity details you may wish to consider changing the information to the above when you next update your Will. Doing this would simplify the process for executors although it would still be possible for them to identify the new charity as a direct replacement for the former charity even if the wording in your Will remains the same.

Thank you for your support, and for considering the possibility of leaving a Gift in your Will, which could make a real difference to many of our guests’ lives in the years to come.

Further information about leaving a Gift in your Will 

The following two documents from the UK Government website:

The Remember a Charity website contains a wealth of further information on this topic including the following pages: