The charity world is competitive, professional and volatile.

Hundreds of causes seek to make known their needs and to secure finance and support for the weakest, the poorest, the most vulnerable, animal, vegetable and mineral.

All plead for help to an affluent world.Within the seemingly endless array of needs there lie two basic and desperate needs - those of the very old and those of the very young.

At one end or the other of our human lives these two groups express the most dire need, for they are the weakest and the most vulnerable and of these two groups it is the young who must have our first claim.

They are, after all, tomorrow's world.It is to such as these that our pockets as well as our hearts have to be opened.

It is because they are young, and therefore unable to sustain themselves, that children's charities such as Barnado's and the Children's Society have grown up over the years.

In Britain, for well over a hundred years, charities have fought hard to support the under-privileged, the abused, the neglected and the poor.

Great work has been and is being done and, as communications worldwide have improved, the plight of children across the continents has been brought before us.

We have seen the rise of international children's charities such as Children in Distress, Save the Children and many others.Charities such as these face great problems.

First they have to compete, with other causes and with each other.

There is only so much money to be given away.

Secondly, particularly for those helping children in other lands, there is the problem of demonstrating the vital need for support for children whom the donors will never see or know, perhaps whose colour is different from their own or whose culture is alien.

Children in Distress has exactly this problem as it finances and runs children's hospices in Romania and in Albania.

Although people are generous they find it difficult to relate to such children.A third problem for children's charities, especially for those that are committed to giving long-term care, is that of sustaining financial input when the initial media coverage has died away and the immediate crisis appears to have abated.

Offering immediate crisis intervention care is one thing.

Providing long-term quality care is quite another.Children's charities have come a long way since the last century, but today things are more fluid than ever before.

The future for most charities is bleak.

Staff costs have risen in rel ation to market forces, transport, goods and services all cost more to provide.

Smaller charities struggle to survive.

whilst the large charities find themselves spending huge amounts of income on publicity and advertising.

It is in this context that wills and legacies become so important.1994