Leave Your Legacy
How do you want to be remembered? What type of impact do you want to have on the causes that matter to you? How will you leave your mark on the community? As you make plans for the future, these are important questions to consider. And if you are like many others in our community, developing a planned gift may be part of your response. Planned giving offers you a way to make a gift to Bay Area Community Foundation during or after your lifetime. These gifts can help you meet your personal, philanthropic, financial, and estate planning goals.
Planned Giving Options
From simple to very complex, there is a planned giving solution for every situation. Here’s an overview of common options. We encourage you to have a conversation with your professional advisor to select the best option for your goals.
- A bequest is one of the easiest and most popular ways to give a planned gift to the community foundation. Simply work with your advisors to include language in your will or estate plan that specifies a gift to Bay Area Community Foundation.
- You may choose to designate a specific gift amount, a percentage of your estate, or make your gift contingent on specific future events.
- Since a bequest is received after your lifetime, this gift does not impact your financial situation or lifestyle today.
- Bequest gifts can substantially help reduce estate taxes.
- Name Bay Area Community Foundation a full or partial beneficiary of your retirement plan or life insurance.
- This designation offers a way to make a significant gift that may not be possible during your lifetime.
- If you are concerned with potentially high estate taxes, a beneficiary designation may be the right choice for you because the benefit payment is generally excluded from your estate for tax purposes.
- Many advisors recommend retirement plan assets as the first to be designated for charitable purposes. That’s because these assets could be taxed at rates as high as 75% upon your death.
You receive income for the rest of your life, knowing that whatever remains after your lifetime will benefit your community.
Choose the payout rate that’s best for your situation. You may receive a fixed income or one that changes with market conditions.
Income may add up to more than the interest and dividends you earned from holding the assets.
You can use this income to supplement your own lifestyle or that of a loved one.
After your lifetime, the remainder of the trust transfers to the Community Foundation and is placed into a charitable fund you have selected.
- Arrange a gift to the Community Foundation while providing yourself a new income source you can count on for the rest of your life.
- Income may add up to more than the interest and dividends you earned from holding the assets.
- You can use this income to supplement your own lifestyle or that of a loved one.
- Your annuity rate is based on your age.
- Place cash or property into a trust that pays a fixed amount to the Community Foundation for the term you select.
- Build a charitable fund with BACF during the trust’s term. When the trust terminates, the remaining assets are transferred to you or your heirs, often with significant transfer-tax savings.
- You can name a nonprofit as a beneficiary of all, or a percentage of, your IRA or company retirement plan.
- Assets from retirement accounts transfer tax-free to charities upon death given the organization’s tax-exempt status. Dollars left to charity also receive an estate tax charitable deduction, helping to reduce any applicable federal estate taxes.
- In comparison, individuals named as beneficiaries of a retirement account are required to pay income taxes on monies received. In addition, they must withdraw the money within 10 years, which limits one’s ability to spread the tax liability out over time.
- So, if you want to take care of both family and charity upon your death, consider (1) gifting your loved ones with assets that will not be subject to income tax when they receive them, and (2) naming a nonprofit as an IRA or retirement plan beneficiary since the nonprofit will not pay any tax. Your professional advisor can help you make decisions that best fit your situation.
Need assistance?
We’re here to help.
989.893.4438
Diane Mahoney - President and CEO
I serve alongside the board of directors as a steward of the assets our donors have entrusted to us. I enjoy being able to connect people to the causes they care about most.
Maggie Dwan - Donor Relations and Communications Officer
Taking on the role of donor relations and communications officer allows me to touch on many different levels of the work we do here at BACF.