PLANNED GIVING

The Gift of Flexibility

Planning for your future and for the future of Saint Francis High School just got simpler. The new user-friendly planned giving portal (sfhsgiftlegacy.com) helps alumni, parents and friends make meaningful legacy gifts that benefit Saint Francis and the donor’s philanthropic objectives with his or her overall estate and financial plan.

The portal provides information about the many ways to include Saint Francis in your estate or financial planning through one or more planned gifts, from a simple, outright bequest to a charitable remainder trust, which Frank Isola and Margo Mynderse-Isola ’67 HC recently established. The information is not intended to supplant the professional advice of your tax accountant and/ or attorney, but sfhsgiftlegacy.com can help you further your planned giving conversations — and help the benefits of a Saint Francis experience extend into the world.

Planned giving options:

BEQUEST:

Designate Saint Francis High School as the beneficiary of your asset by will, trust or beneficiary designation form.

IRA ROLLOVER:

Make an IRA rollover gift this year and in future years.

CHARITABLE LEAD TRUST:

Fund a trust that makes gifts to Saint Francis for a number of years. Your family receives the trust remainder at substantial tax savings.

SALE AND UNITRUST:

Give a portion of your property to fund a charitable remainder trust that benefits Saint Francis. When the property sells, you receive cash and income for life.

BENEFICIARY DESIGNATION GIFTS:

Designate the school as a beneficiary of a retirement, investment or bank account or your life insurance policy.

GIVE IT TWICE TRUST:

Provide your children with a stream of income while making a gift to Saint Francis.

CHARITABLE REMAINDER TRUST:

Transfer your cash or appreciated property to the school to fund a charitable remainder trust. The trust sells your property tax free and provides you with income for life or a term of years.

LIFE ESTATE RESERVED:

Give your property to Saint Francis but retain the right to use the property during your life.

A LASTING LEGACY:

Frank Isola and Margo Mynderse-Isola ’67 HC

When Frank Isola and Margo MynderseIsola ’67 HC reflect on their children’s experiences at Saint Francis, they are incredibly grateful for the opportunities Chris ’99 and Lisa ’02 received. Chris and Lisa were challenged academically and grew as individuals through their co-curricular activities, Chris with football and basketball and Lisa with drama.

In fact, the Isola family loved being a part of the Saint Francis community and participated in the life of the school long before their children were old enough for high school. “We used to live on Covington Road, right around the corner,” Margo says. “Chris was one of those kids who played under the great big tree at football games with his friends.”

Once Chris and Lisa were students at Saint Francis, the family served the school in many ways. Frank sat on the Board of Directors from 1998 to 2004 and cooked barbecue on Friday nights during the football season. Margo was the Lancer Auction chair from 1996 to 2002, taking the fundraiser that was normally hosted on campus and expanding it to the San Jose Convention Center. They volunteered their home for the 1995 Christmas at Our House home tour, the school holiday fundraiser.

In gratitude for their children’s education and their family’s experiences, Frank and Margo in 2018 established a charitable remainder trust (CRT), a vehicle for planned giving, with the intent of benefiting future Lancers and the school’s endowment fund, which supports tuition assistance. Planned gifts help donors meet their financial and charitable goals while supporting the school’s endowment. A CRT is a trust that generates income for the donor, and after the terms of the trust the remainder of the assets are donated to Saint Francis.

“This is a win-win,” says Frank. “The trust will grow from year to year, and we get an annuity for our lifetime. We create a means of contributing to the school, which we’ve always thought of highly.”

Frank had considered a planned giving program at Saint Francis when he was serving on the Board of Directors. At that time, he had established a CRT with the University of California, Berkeley, his alma mater. However, there was no such mechanism at Saint Francis, and he knew that having a planned gift program was something the school could benefit from. As one of the earliest to consider CRTs and planned giving for Saint Francis, Frank and Margo’s gift represents efforts to expand on the work of others committed to expanding the school’s resources. Frank recalled his connection with the group of early Saint Francis parents who created the Foundation Board, and subsequently, the Endowment Fund, and he remembered his time on the Board of Directors when it established the EDGE Fund and Endowment Fund to support employee retention.

Now retired, Frank was the president of Franklin Templeton Investor Services, while Margo was a nurse and ran outpatient surgery centers. They continue to maintain relationships with Saint Francis families they knew from their children’s time as Lancers. Most of all, they remain supporters of Saint Francis’s mission of providing a Holy Cross education to students of diverse financial backgrounds, and they are proud of their commitment to invest in the school’s future.