Planned Giving

Include a charitable bequest in your will
Don’t forget about Child Start when you make a will.  Work with your lawyer to include a charitable bequest in your will (or revocable living trust if you have one).  Your bequest can be an outright gift of money or property, a gift of a percentage of your estate, a gift of the rest of your estate after gifts to your family, or a "contingency" gift of your estate to Child Start only if your family doesn’t survive you. 

Don’t have a will?
As desirable as it is to have an estate plan that includes at least a will, you can leave a legacy without one.  Kansas law permits you to add a pay on death ("POD") designation or a transfer on death ("TOD") designation to a bank account or security, naming a beneficiary to receive the asset following your death.  POD and TOD designations are commonly used to pass assets to family members, avoiding probate at death.  A charity can be a beneficiary, too, either the sole beneficiary or one of several.  To leave a legacy with a POD or TOD designation on a bank account, for example, all you need to do is go to the bank and fill out a new signature card.

Leverage your life insurance policy 
It is easy to call your life insurance company and request a change of beneficiary form.  You can name Child Start as beneficiary of all or part of the policy proceeds following your death.  A good way to incorporate current giving with income tax benefits is to give the life insurance policy itself to Child Start, as well as naming Child Start as the beneficiary.  Your payment of the premium each year will be an annual gift to Child Start, eligible for the income tax deduction.

Use your retirement plan 
By filling out a simple change of beneficiary form, you can name Child Start as the beneficiary of your tax-deferred IRA or 401(k) retirement plan.  Don’t worry - the money is still yours to live on following retirement.  By naming Child Start as the beneficiary, you are giving only whatever is left at the time of your death--the money you don’t need during your lifetime.  Remember that proceeds from these plans usually are subject to income tax when distributed to individuals, but not when distributed to a charity because a charity is tax-exempt.  This is a great way to maximize a charitable gift because Child Start ends up getting a lot more out of the retirement plan than an individual beneficiary would have received after the tax hit.  

Reprinted with permission from Leave A Legacy