If you’ve been meaning to sit down and write a will for years, you’re not the only one.
According to a 2026 CIBC and Ipsos poll, 94% of Canadians believe everyone should have a will. Only 52% actually have one. Most of us aren’t putting it off because we don’t care. We’re putting it off because we’re not sure where to start, or because it feels like a task for “someday”.
At Heart for Africa (Canada), we wanted to spend a little time this month on one small piece of that someday task: what it actually means to leave a gift to charity in your will, and how simple that step can be once you understand it.
A gift in your will, explained simply
A legacy gift, sometimes called a charitable bequest, is a gift you leave to an organization through your will rather than during your lifetime. In Canada, this usually means working with a lawyer or notary to include a clause in your will naming the charity or charities you want to support.
The exact process varies a little from province to province, so a lawyer or notary familiar with your province’s requirements is the right person to walk you through it. What stays the same everywhere is the basic idea: you decide today what you want to happen, and your will carries that decision forward.
You don’t need a large estate to do this
This is probably the biggest misconception we hear. Legacy giving isn’t reserved for people with significant wealth. After you’ve provided for the people you love, you can choose to leave a percentage of whatever remains, even a small one, to a cause that has meant something to you.
A specific dollar amount, a piece of property, or a percentage of your estate all work. Many people find a percentage easiest to plan around, since it scales naturally with whatever their estate turns out to be, rather than locking in a fixed number years in advance.
The gap between intention and action
That same CIBC poll found something else worth noting. Nearly three-quarters of Canadians say they intend to pass on wealth to the people and causes they care about during their lifetime, yet far fewer have an actual plan in place to do it. Intention and action are two different things, and a will is often what turns one into the other.
A legacy gift works the same way. It’s the difference between caring about an organization’s work and making sure that care outlives you.
Twenty years is a long time to build something
Heart for Africa (Canada) has been walking alongside donors for twenty years now. In that time, we’ve watched Project Canaan grow from an idea into a 1,000-hectare sustainability project in Eswatini, home to hundreds of children, a farm, and a school whose very first graduating class won’t cross the stage until around 2030. Work on this scale was never going to happen in a year or even a decade. It only happens because people plan for it to outlast them.
That’s really the heart of legacy giving. It’s a way of saying that the things you care about deserve support long after you’re the one giving it.
We’re here if you’d like to know more
This year, we’re introducing something we’re calling the Lifa Society, a way of recognizing the friends who have chosen, or are considering choosing, to include Heart for Africa (Canada) in their will or estate plans. Lifa means inheritance or legacy in siSwati, and it felt like the right word for what began twenty years ago and is still very much unfolding.
If you’re curious about what this could look like for you, you can visit our Lifa Society page, or reach out to our team at info@heartforafrica.ca. We would be glad to have a private, no-pressure conversation about it whenever you’re ready.