Planned Giving

All of us leave a legacy – the values we teach our children, the memories we create with friends. But with careful planning, you can accomplish even more. You can reach beyond your circle of friends and family to create a legacy that touches the entire community and improves the quality of life for generations to come. Through your will, trust and other means, you can set up and add to a fund in your name or that of a loved one. Your gift can be used to accomplish almost any charitable goal, including:

• Establishing a scholarship fund
• Creating an endowment for a favorite charity
• Leaving a family legacy that allows your children, and successive generations, to continue your involvement in charitable giving

A retirement plan is one of the best types of assets to transfer to a charity because it produces taxable income. Although most inherited assets are free from income tax, a non-spousal beneficiary will pay income tax on disbursements from a decedent’s retirement plan – such as a profit sharing plan, 401(k) plan or IRA. If you intend to make a charitable bequest, it is usually better to transfer the taxable assets to a tax-exempt charity like the Foundation and leave the non-taxable assets to your heirs.

With the help of your attorney, you can establish an irrevocable charitable remainder trust, which provides income to your beneficiaries and leaves the remainder to the Foundation for the purpose you specify. Or you can do the reverse with a charitable lead trust, which provides income to the Foundation for a period of years and then pays the principal to your beneficiaries. If you fund the trust with appreciated property, such as securities or real estate, the tax benefits may be especially advantageous.

If you don’t have liquid assets right now but want to support a favorite charity, a gift of life insurance may be a good option. There are several ways to apply life insurance policies to your charitable giving, including:

• Irrevocably designating the Foundation as owner of the policy. In this case, you receive a tax deduction for the annual premiums and the Foundation receives the policy benefits upon your death
• Irrevocably contributing a paid-up policy, resulting in a tax deduction for its cash value
• If you would like to contribute the policy’s proceeds to help the community but are not ready to give up ownership, you can name the Foundation as sole beneficiary. In the meantime, you can retain ownership of the policy and can access the cash value while retaining the right to change the beneficiary

Keep in mind: As long as you remain owner of the policy, there is no charitable deduction either when you designate us as beneficiary or pay for subsequent insurance premiums. However, proceeds payable to the Foundation at your death will not be subject to federal estate taxes.