What happens to a charitable gift in a will if that charity has since merged with another organization?

When a named charity has merged into another organization, courts generally try to give effect to what the will-maker actually intended rather than letting the gift automatically fail. If the merger simply changed the charity's name or legal structure while its charitable purpose and operations genuinely continued in the successor organization, the gift can often still be paid to that successor. This isn't automatic in every case, though, and how the merger was structured — a true amalgamation versus a dissolution with assets transferred elsewhere — matters to the outcome.

If it's unclear whether the successor is really the "same" charity for the gift's purposes, the estate trustee may need legal advice, and in some cases a court application, to confirm who should properly receive the gift. This is different from a charity that has closed entirely with no successor, which raises separate questions about whether the gift can be redirected to a similar cause instead.

Because charity mergers and wind-downs happen more often than people expect, it's worth checking periodically whether charities named in an existing will are still operating as expected, and updating the will if a named organization has changed significantly since it was signed.