As more people reach later life without children, one Yorkshire woman is asking a question that society rarely talks about: What does legacy look like when there is no next generation to inherit it?
For Angela Catley, the answer is not a distant charitable donation.
It is a permanent fund designed to help ordinary people build stronger communities for years to come.
Angela, a social care leader and co-founder of Community Catalysts, has established the Seed and Spark Fund with Two Ridings Community Foundation. The Fund will support community-led ideas that bring people together, tackle isolation and create opportunities for people to make a difference where they live.
Created through a gift in Angela’s Will, the Fund is expected to be worth a six-figure sum and will provide funding for community projects long into the future. It will be stewarded by Two Ridings Community Foundation, one of a network of community foundations across the UK that manages charitable funds on behalf of donors, families, businesses and trusts. Many people establish funds or leave gifts in their Wills through community foundations as a way of creating a lasting local legacy.
The idea grew from a question Angela found herself returning to over many years. She and her late husband Howard never had children because they chose not to. While many people see their legacy reflected in children and grandchildren, Angela realised she would need to think differently about how her values might live on.
“We didn’t want children, but when you don’t have that physical legacy, you’ve got to create something else.
“Lots of people can say their greatest achievement is their children or grandchildren. I haven’t got that, so I’ve spent time thinking about what I’d like to leave behind.”
Her answer was shaped by a career spent working alongside people whose strengths and contributions were often overlooked.
After volunteering with people with learning disabilities as a teenager, Angela trained as a nurse. She went on to co-found Community Catalysts, helping communities across the UK develop local solutions to social challenges.
Throughout that work, she became increasingly convinced that lasting change rarely begins with large public sector bodies or institutions.
Instead, it begins with people.
Neighbours.
Volunteers.
Local leaders.
People with an idea and the chance to make it happen.
“We assume somebody at the top has all the answers.
“Eventually you realise nobody does.
“The power is in people. The power is in communities.”
The Seed and Spark Fund will invest in the kinds of grassroots ideas Angela has seen transform lives throughout her career: projects that connect neighbours, reduce loneliness, create opportunities and strengthen communities.
It is inspired by a simple belief.
“Most people are fantastic.
“Give them something small and they’ll create something amazing.”
For Angela, the decision is about more than philanthropy. It is about reimagining legacy itself.
Rather than passing wealth down a family line, it passes opportunity forward through communities.
The fund also carries the influence of people who shaped Angela’s life.
Her father, a former firefighter, taught her fairness, curiosity and the importance of standing up for the underdog. Today he lives with dementia, but remains, in Angela’s words, her “guiding star”. Her Mam always encouraged her to be herself and was a role model for strong, independent women.
And Howard, who died in a car accident in 2009, remains part of the story too.
Part of the fund will be built from the assets accumulated during their life together. In that sense, the Seed and Spark Fund is not simply Angela’s legacy. It is theirs.
Through Two Ridings Community Foundation, the communities that shaped their lives will continue benefiting from the values they shared. Grants will be awarded from the Fund year after year, creating opportunities for future generations long after Angela is gone.
At a time when conversations about ageing, loneliness, community and changing family structures have become increasingly prominent, Angela hopes her story encourages others to think differently about what they leave behind.
Rather than asking who will inherit their wealth, she believes more people are beginning to ask what kind of future they want to help create.
Community foundations offer one answer. By stewarding charitable funds on behalf of donors, they enable people to create a lasting source of funding for the communities and causes they care about, often through gifts left in Wills.
“Legacy isn’t really about money.
“It’s about the future you want to create.”