The last great act of love: why your will matters more than you think

WILLS MONTH BLOG SERIES

Throughout September Wills Month we are sharing useful information and thought pieces from our network of member Foundations and supporters.

By Henry Brandts-Giesen of Dentons
Monday 7th Sept 2026


We mark most of life's milestones with ceremony. We marry in front of witnesses. We introduce and confirm our children into religious movements in the presence of community. We farewell our dead with funerals that draw people from across the country. Yet the one document that quietly outlasts all of these events, and speaks for us after we are gone, is too often an afterthought: the will.

I have spent my career as a lawyer helping families preserve and grow their wealth across generations, and I have come to see making a will not as a chore but as one of the most profound acts of love a person can perform. A will is the expression of a living person's wishes concerning the disposition of property, to take effect after that person's death, and it exists so that our loved ones and dependents are properly looked after once we are gone. Like a wedding vow or a religious rite of passage, it is a considered, deliberate statement about who and what we value, made while we still have the chance to say it clearly. Few other documents carry that same weight of finality and care.

Why making a will is important

If you die without a will, the rules of intestacy decide who inherits, and those rules are archaic and do not adequately protect modern families such as de facto partners, often forcing administrators to trace relatives at real cost and delay to the estate. Intestacy makes no provision for specific gifts to friends or charities, and can produce unintended and detrimental outcomes where a business or complex assets are involved. If you have young children, a will lets you appoint guardians and control how and when they inherit, rather than children receiving everything outright at eighteen by default. Because life changes, a will should be reviewed after marriage, separation, the birth of children, starting a business, or a significant change in wealth, and updating it regularly is just as important as making one in the first place. A will, properly made and kept current, is the clearest gift of certainty you can leave the people who depend on you.

Why philanthropy matters in an inequitable world

We live at a moment of extraordinary imbalance. The greatest intergenerational transfer of wealth in human history is currently underway, with New Zealand families having enjoyed unprecedented growth in net worth, at the very time social welfare systems are under increasing pressure. Governments are expected to meet an ever-expanding range of social needs, from housing and mental health to education and climate resilience, yet charities exist precisely because they deliver services that would be difficult to provide on a purely commercial or state-run basis, filling gaps that central and local government cannot fill alone. Most personal giving in New Zealand takes the form of donations and bequests, and bequests make up the largest proportion of charitable gifts and are by far the largest single gifts to charity. Philanthropy is not a substitute for the state, but in an inequitable world it is an indispensable complement to it, and a will is one of the most powerful and accessible tools any of us has to practise it.

Why community foundations are the right vehicle for the times

The difficulty has always been how to give well, not just generously. Community foundations are recognised as more cost-effective, versatile and less administratively burdensome than creating a new charity, taking care of compliance, investment and governance so donors can focus on the impact of their gift rather than the mechanics of running it. Because they have close connections with local charities and causes, community foundations are uniquely placed to direct giving effectively within a community, helping identify and solve local problems and giving donors confidence that their funds are used well. They are a hundred-year-old worldwide movement and the fastest growing form of philanthropy globally, pooling individual endowment funds to achieve economies of scale that an individual bequest could never achieve alone. A fund held with a community foundation can also carry a family's philanthropic values forward to future generations, allowing family members to stay involved in giving without taking on the burden of governance.

For a New Zealander thinking about what to put in their will, a gift to a community foundation offers something rare: a structure that is legally robust, locally grounded, and built to outlast us. Professional advisers have a genuine role to play here, since studies show clients want to discuss philanthropy early in their planning and are more likely to leave a gift in their will when the option is raised and normalised as part of the conversation.

As you sit down to make or update your will this Wills Month, consider raising it with your lawyer: a gift, however modest, left in trust with your local community foundation, is a quiet but lasting act of love for the place and people you call home.