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Your legacy can help provide a lifetime of care

When you leave a legacy gift to the NORTH Foundation you are investing in the future of healthcare for generations to come – so that our services can continue to be there for the community when they need us most.

While our clinicians, healthcare workers and researchers are proud to be able to serve the community, the NORTH Foundation is honoured to be able to support their work. We raise funds to support innovation in health research and patient care, and with the generosity of our community, have been able to support initiatives like:  

  • Lung cancer, melanoma and brain tumour research
  • Purchasing specialised equipment for our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
  • Funding for Senior Researchers and their work within the Bone & Joint Institute
  • Aged Care Research which resulted in the docu-series ‘Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds’
  • Support to improve Cancer Carer Services & Patient Wellbeing Programs
  • Research Fellowships in the area of Neurology and Haematology

Your guide to leaving a Gift in Will

The care that you’ve shown your family and friends in your lifetime is your legacy. The care that you and your loved ones received from our healthcare services and researchers is ours.

Naturally, leaving a gift in your Will can inspire a lot of big thinking and discussion, so we’ve created a guide which provides six easy steps to creating your legacy gift. It also includes practical information on how to write or amend your Will, and answers to common bequest questions.

Get your free gifts in Wills guide

How we can help

Although we are unable to provide you with legal advice or directly assist you in writing your Will, we can provide you with key information to pass on to your solicitor or adviser.  

We want to ensure that your generous legacy gift can be used for your intended purpose and has the best possible long-term impact, for this reason strongly encourage you to contact us to discuss specific wording which suits your specific need.  

If you would like to learn more about a specific area, or aren’t sure which area you would like to support, we would love to discuss this further with you and if possible introduce you to some of our medical experts in that area.  

Write your Will online with Safewill

We’ve partnered with Safewill, Australia’s most trusted online Will writing platform, to offer our supporters and the wider community the opportunity to write a legally valid Will.

The process is easy, secure and affordable. You can write your bespoke Will in just a few clicks from the comfort of your own home. To give you peace of mind, every Will is reviewed by a practicing Australian solicitor to ensure the platform has been used correctly.

FREE WILL WEEK

From 2 to 8 September 2024, you can write your bespoke Will for free and make unlimited changes free of charge for a full year.

Learn more

If you are considering leaving a gift in your Will or have already done so, we would love for you to let us know so that we can personally thank you for your incredible generosity and keep you up to date on our healthcare services and research.

Gilbert Lorquet - CEO, NORTH Foundation

Our promise to you

Choosing to leave a legacy gift is a testament to your values and how you want to be remembered.  

We understand that leaving a gift in your Will is a very personal and generous decision. Your first priority is your loved ones and it is important to talk with them about your wishes, and why you might choose to leave a gift to the NORTH Foundation or one of our beneficiaries.  

Our promise to you:  

  • We will do our best to honour your wishes and ensure that your gift has a meaningful impact on the services we provide and the research we conduct.  
  • Respect that writing your Will is important and personal to you and needs time.  
  • Honour your privacy and acknowledge your generosity only with the recognition you are comfortable with.  
  • Understand that circumstances may change and you may reconsider your bequest.  
  • Ensure your gift is utilised in the most effective and meaningful way. 
  • Continue to provide updates and the latest information on the area you have chosen to support. 

With your generosity our hospitals and healthcare services can continue to provide a lifetime of care to those in our community. Your gift will allow us to support, grow and improve our health services and medical research, and help guide future generations to a better tomorrow.

A Gift in Will is a truly selfless act that has the potential to impact the lives of others for years to come and for this reason we have chosen to name our bequest society the ‘Northern Stars’ – a group of individuals who are choosing to make gifts that lead the future of healthcare for the Northern Sydney Local Health District.

Gilbert Lorquet - CEO, NORTH Foundation

Become a Northern Star

Our district health and medical services are built on the generosity of caring members of our community – people like you. 

Our legacy donors are a special group of donors that we refer to as our Northern Stars – guiding the future of health care and medical research for years to come. By choosing to leave a legacy gift in your Will, you will become an important part of our journey and join a community of visionaries committed to improving our healthcare services and medical research for generations to come.  

Mrs Eva Kolling OBE was our first Northern Star who in 1929 made a generous gift of £5,000 (equivalent to $644,400 in today’s AUD) in memory of her late husband Charles Kolling to fund medical research for the community. This generous donation was used to fund the construction of what was one of the first medical research laboratories in New South Wales – the Charles Kolling Memorial Laboratory. Upon her passing in 1941, Eva generously left a legacy gift in her will to continue and eventually expand the laboratory. The Kolling Institute of Medical Research is now the oldest medical research institute in New South Wales and conducts a wide variety of research focused on tackling some of the greatest medical challenges facing our world today. 

Similarly, Ryde Hospital was built as the result of generous philanthropic investment and community support. Although it was originally thought to be too expensive for a hospital to be created in Ryde, the community banded together to advocate and raise funds to purchase Denistone House (then an aged-care facility) to act as the first hospital building. This spirit of advocacy and giving back still forms a strong part of the community spirit in Ryde.  

It took incredible foresight, generosity, and passion for these members of the community to make the philanthropic investment that they did – especially during a time when such charity was unheard of. These gifts laid the foundation for the standard of hospital services and medical research available to the community for generations to come.  

For this reason, we consider these generous philanthropic pioneers to be our first Northern Stars – guiding the future of health and medical services for years to come. 

Receive your free gifts in Wills information pack

A simple step-by-step guide that will show you how to leave a legacy gift to the NORTH Foundation, and answer common questions about making a gift in your Will.

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