Planned Giving For Regular People

By Merica S. Dobry, Senior Counsel, Warner Norcross & Judd LLP

If you are like me, your mailbox and email inbox get flooded at the end of each year with year-end appeals, along with holiday greetings and store flyers. The last few months of the year are sometimes expensive, especially if, like my family, you have birthdays mixed in with holiday celebrations, to say nothing of our charitable giving plans each year. It can be a challenge to allocate our limited resources between all the perceived obligations jostling for our attention. It comes down to a simple question: What do you hope to accomplish? What does the new year look like, for yourselves, for your families, for your community?

What if you use the beginning of the new year as a time to thoughtfully consider the legacy you wish to leave for your family, friends and community? Perhaps your legacy involves making gifts to support causes that are important to you. Perhaps you wish to pay tribute to a special friend or family member by giving to a charity. If your legacy vision involves giving, even on a small scale, you should consider the benefits of planned giving which can amplify the impact of gifts of any size.

How do I make a “planned gift”? Planned giving is creating a plan to make a gift (either during your lifetime or after your death) that will have the best impact on the nonprofit. You don’t need to be wealthy to make an impact.

If you do not feel comfortable making a gift during your lifetime, you may choose to make a deferred gift instead. Deferred gifts are planned in advance and then triggered by an event, such as the donor’s death. The easiest way to do this is through a charitable bequest, where you state in your will the estate assets that you wish to gift to the nonprofit upon your death. In creating a bequest, you can leave the nonprofit either a percentage of your total estate value, a specific asset (such as a car or part of an investment portfolio), a specified amount of money, or the remaining assets in your estate after all your other requests have been satisfied.

You can also make a planned gift to a nonprofit by designating the nonprofit as a beneficiary of your retirement or IRA account, or your life insurance. Then those assets would pass directly to the nonprofit at your death. You may designate all, or merely a portion, of your account or life insurance benefits. Gifts of any size can make a real impact on a nonprofit and adding a charitable organization as a beneficiary does not interfere with your income.

If your funds are limited or you need to maintain a certain level of financial security, but you still want to make an impactful gift during your lifetime, you could set up a charitable gift annuity or a charitable trust. For example, you can contribute cash or investment assets to a charitable trust, and the trust will provide you with fixed income payments for a period of years or for your lifetime (and your spouse’s lifetime if desired). The charitable beneficiary can invest the trust assets during your lifetime and watch them grow, and then it keeps the remaining funds after your death. Even though planning for this type of gift can be complicated, this is a wonderful option to support nonprofits like the Harbor Hospice Foundation. An attorney should assist you to set up this type of giving plan.

Remember that even small seeds grow into

large trees. Any gift you wish to make to a nonprofit, now or in the future, can grow into something more impactful over time with the right planning. Imagine the impact if each of you readers designated even 1% of your estate to the Harbor Hospice Foundation. Creating a planned gift is a wonderful way to leave a legacy, provide future funding and ensure that the Harbor Hospice Foundation resources will be available to families in the future.

Merica S. Dobry is an attorney and Senior Counsel at Warner Norcross + Judd, LLP in their Muskegon, MI office. Merica also serves on the Harbor Hospice Foundation Board of Directors. You can reach Merica at her office by calling 231.727.2610 or by email to mdobry@wnj.com.