COMMUNITY Fall 2009
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Fulfilling Giving Goals and Intent:
A Donor’s Perspective
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Loren Coppock delivered the following remarks to members of the William Quarton Heritage Society at their annual luncheon in June. Loren’s genuine interest in seeing our community thrive is evident in him and his wife Patti, and in their dedication to the power of philanthropy. Some people just know they want to help others. Some know they have received more than they could ever spend. They recognize that with wealth comes a responsibility to create something, not just consume more. The creation of a life policy in 1991 was the first step for my wife, Patti, and me in fulfilling our philanthropic goals and objectives. In doing so, we found it wasn’t that easy. We needed someone else to own the policy if it was to be a gift and we had multiple beneficiaries in mind. We didn’t want it in my estate or my wife’s estate. That was when we went looking for a “Community Foundation” or something similar. I happened on the National Trust in Tennessee. They had sent me all of their information and I had discussed it with them by phone before I was even made aware of the fact that Malcolm Peel was the director of something called the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation. I met Malcolm and he explained the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation and after a couple of months of putting things together, we closed the deal. I was 42 at the time and we were delighted that we were on our way to doing something special for our community and some of our favorite charities. Last December we entered the second stage of our lifetime planning with the sale of a highly-appreciated business
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interest that gave us the chance to leverage our intentions like almost no other lifetime event can do. We also learned about Endow Iowa at that time. If you have charitable intent, you need to understand this incredible enhancement to a donor’s ability to maximize his/her philanthropy. Thanks to many of our local legislative leaders, especially Rob Hogg and Swati Dandekar, Iowa is the first in the nation in legislative foresight in building endowment wealth. Future generations in our area will be huge beneficiaries of this wonderful program. I don’t know yet what our next step will be. Perhaps it will be further contributions to our 2008 Fund. Perhaps it is an estate gift. We plan to stay alert to the many opportunities that present themselves in the coming years. continued on page 3