Leaving a gift in your Will is one of the most impactful ways that you can ensure our work thrives for generations to come. As a registered Charity, a gift of any size makes a huge difference. Below we share one family’s experience of discovering their loved one had left Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival a gift in their will. To find out more, visit Leave a Legacy.
Bon Viveur & Artist
By Mary Carr and Catherine Redstone
Our wonderful relative Valerie Kippax lived in Brighton for 50 years after a career in Paris and New York.
Valerie was a great supporter of Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival and enjoyed many events and performances over the years. She would invite us sometimes – and then sit us in a different row, so we would not interrupt her reverie in the performances! We were amused to learn that her quirkiness extended to the fact that she often sat in some wonderfully unusual side stalls - an area more often used for storage.
So as Executors for her estate after she died in 2023, aged 93, it was not a complete surprise to find that Valerie had made Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival a beneficiary in her Will.
Discovering this gift brought an oddly uplifting joy to a time of mourning and “sadmin”. Sharing the news felt like a way to continue our wonderful memories of her as we wound up her estate.
Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival have a fantastic dedicated Legacy Team who look after gifts in wills. A lot of the vital job of fundraising work is about human connection and relationship building. Sarah and Sam were kind and sensitive about our loss and it felt like we worked together to honour Valerie’s memory with warmth and respect.
They were regularly in touch with guidance on steps in the process, helped organise the smooth transition of Valerie’s gift and reassured us that they would really put the legacy to great use as Valerie would have wished.
We were overjoyed to learn that Valerie’s was the most generous legacy donation Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival had ever received at the time. The team shared genuine delight and gratitude in Valerie’s incredibly generous gift, which made us so proud of her vision to continue her immense fondness for the venue and its cultural aims through her legacy.
Valerie would be particularly pleased that there is now a dedicated seat plaque in the Concert Hall to honour her memory and great contribution to the Brighton Dome. As part of the Name A Seat campaign, we chose F27 as her Named Seat - even if it wasn’t part of her history of sitting in the wings! This lovely tribute is bang in the middle of the upper stalls and the same number as her home in the North Laines.
The Legacy Team does an amazing job. If you also love Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival, maybe bear them in mind when planning your Will! Our legacy contributions really do make a difference and are vital to the ongoing sustainability of this organisation as a charity.
If you find yourself in seat F27, give a nod to the wonderful Valerie, her generosity and her incredible life.
