Endowing your gift
How to make your gift last forever.

Over the past several years, many charitable organizations have begun campaigns to have their donors "endow" their annual gifts. Simply stated, this involves leaving a gift in your will of an amount whose investments can create a gift for current use each year, forever.
It works in this manner: a charitable organization will take the endowed gift amount, spend a fixed amount of the gift annually, (this is determined by the organization's endowment spending policy), and reinvest the difference to both offset inflation as well as to provide income to supplement their annual revenues and gifts.
Take, for example, an annual gift of $1500. How much would it take to endow that gift so that a charitable organization could receive that amount indefinitely? If, say, the organization's policy for spending endowment income is 5% annually, simply divide the annual gift amount, $1500, by the amount called for in the spending policy, in this case 5%, and you get $30,000. Thus, making an endowment of $30,000 can continue the $1500 annual gift indefinitely

Applying the above principle to any given situation we see that, at a 5% endowment spending level, twenty times an annual gift amount equals a perpetual gift endowment.

The added benefit is that the spending policy of the endowment allows the asset value and thus the annual income to grow to offset inflation. Because of this increase, many people can actually increase their gifts to their favorite charitable organization over the years.

Setting up an endowment could be the most farsighted and enduring act of your lifetime!

What it means to you - it's a way for you to play a special part in perpetuating a cause that means a lot to you. What it means to the charitable organization - it provides a steady dependable source of income.

We will be happy to discuss this plan further with you, your tax advisor or attorney. Please contact us today.