By Wayne du Plessis, SCOUTS South Africa CEO

Photo by Nicholas Huisman

There is a point in most people’s lives when the idea of legacy starts to mean something a little different. When we are young, we tend to think about what we are going to do. The career we will build. The places we will go. The things we will own. Later, perhaps, we start thinking less about what we will accumulate and more about what we will leave behind.

That does not necessarily mean something grand or permanent in the way we sometimes imagine legacy. It is rarely about having a building named after you or having your name remembered for generations. Legacy is the people we have influenced. The opportunities we have created. The values we have passed on. The stories our families tell. The people who remember that, at some point, we showed up for them. It is the moments when something we did made someone else’s life a little better, even if we never knew the full impact of it. I have been thinking about this a lot in my role as CEO of SCOUTS South Africa.

Scouting is, in my mind, a Movement built on legacy. There is something quite remarkable about Scouting when you look at it from that perspective. We are not simply an organisation delivering a programme to young people. We are a scarf that stretches across generations.

Every generation of Scouts inherits something from the generation before it. This could be a campfire tradition like a song, a piece of equipment, a Scout Group, a campsite, amongst others. Sometimes simply an adult volunteer who decided that young people were worth investing their time in. Much of what we have today exists because somebody, years ago, cared enough to make sure it continued.

That is easy to overlook. We arrive at a campsite and it is simply there. We open a programme resource and it has already been developed. We put on a uniform that carries decades of history. We join a Scout Group that someone else worked hard to establish and sustain. We inherit these things without always knowing the names of the people who made them possible – and then at some point, we hand it to the next generation. I think that is one of the most beautiful things about Scouting. We are temporary custodians of something that is bigger than any one of us.

Our responsibility is not simply to enjoy what we have inherited. It is to leave the Movement in a position where the next generation can build on it. That is what makes legacy giving particularly meaningful to me.

Leaving a gift to SCOUTS South Africa in your Will isn’t really about leaving money to an organisation. It is about deciding that something you have valued during your lifetime should continue to exist for someone you may never meet. Legacy giving is not really a conversation about wealth. It is a conversation about values. We often think that making a difference requires a large donation today. It doesn’t. A legacy can be a specific amount, a percentage of an estate, or another asset. It can be something modest or something substantial. What matters is not necessarily the size of the gift, but the intention behind it. For those of us involved in Scouting, this feels particularly appropriate.

Our Promise asks us to do our best. Our Law asks us to live according to values that have guided Scouts for generations. And our Movement has survived for more than a century because people before us believed that investing in young people mattered. They volunteered when they had busy lives. They gave time when there were other demands on them. They raised funds, maintained camps, ran meetings, transported young people, repaired things, taught skills and kept Scout Groups going. Most of them probably never imagined that they were doing anything particularly historic. They were simply doing what needed to be done.

As CEO, one of my responsibilities is to think about the future of SCOUTS South Africa. Not just the next financial year, the next strategy or the next national event, but the organisation that we want to hand to the next generation. It means building something that can outlast any particular CEO, Board, volunteer or generation of Scouts.

A strong legacy fund helps us do that. The SA SCOUT Foundation’s endowment is designed to provide long-term financial sustainability for Scouting, with invested capital generating income that can support SCOUTS South Africa into the future. That is why I believe legacy giving deserves more conversation within our Movement, not because we want to talk about what happens when we are no longer here, but because we should talk about what we want to continue when we are no longer here.

If Scouting has meant something to you, perhaps it is worth asking a simple question: “What would you like Scouting to be able to do for a young person 20, 30 or 50 years from now?” That question is bigger than a donation. It is really a question about the kind of South Africa we want to help build. I believe Scouting has an important role to play in that future. And perhaps the greatest legacy any of us can leave is not to have our name remembered, but to know that something we cared about helped another generation find its way. That, to me, is the real conversation about legacy giving. It is not about death. It is about continuity. That is a legacy worth leaving.

If you would like to explore leaving a gift to Scouting in your Will, the SA SCOUT Foundation can assist with the process. A bequest can be added to an existing Will through a codicil, or included when preparing a new Will. 

Professional legal or estate-planning advice should always be sought when preparing or changing your Will. This week is National Wills Week where legal professionals assist members of the public to draft a Will at no cost. Find more information here: https://www.lssa.org.za/our-initiatives/advocacy/national-wills-week/