Charitable Bequests
Provide special and significant support for charity.
Stewards who have lived well, care about ending well. Having exercised a lifetime of stewardship, you naturally and rightly care about what happens to your financial resources. Creating a Bequest Plan with Anabaptist Foundation can be one additional avenue of passing your values on to your heirs while helping to build the Kingdom.
Advantages of a Bequest Plan:
- Provide special and significant support for charity
- Reemphasize your stewardship values to your heirs
- Simplify your estate
- Support multiple charities with one bequest
- Ability to revise your gift decisions without changing your will
- Reduce estate and inheritance taxes
How does a Bequest plan work?
When considering their will, most people are concerned about dividing their assets among their family to meet needs and make gifts. This is an appropriate use of your resources. We would like to suggest that there are situations where the resources to be divided exceed your responsibilities to your heirs. When this is true, you should consider including your church, local Christian school, or special charities as a part of your estate planning.
Working with your own lawyer, you indicate in your will that a portion of your assets should be left as a charitable bequest to Anabaptist Foundation. Then, working with Anabaptist Foundation, you create a Bequest Plan that recommends which charities you would like to support with your bequest.
When your estate is settled after your death, your executor will simply make one charitable bequest to Anabaptist Foundation. Following the Bequest Plan, the Foundation then oversees the distribution of these assets to approved charities you have recommended.
How do I decide what to give?
The first step is to decide what share of your assets you wish to designate for charity. It is better to use percentages or shares rather than a dollar amount, since the size of your estate is likely to change between now and when it is settled. Options include giving a fixed percentage (like a 10% tithe on the estate) or giving all that remains after specific bequests to your family are met.
After you have reached this decision, Anabaptist Foundation will help you create your Bequest Plan which lists the churches, schools, or other charities you wish to support, and the percent of the bequest intended for each. You can modify this Bequest Plan at any time by contacting the Foundation, without going to the expense of changing your will.
What should my will say?
Your lawyer will help you, but your charitable bequest may be worded like one of the following examples:
“I give, devise, and bequeath to the Anabaptist Foundation, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation organized under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with headquarters at 31285 State Hwy. 27, Guys Mills, PA, ____% of my estate (or name of a particular property) for its general purposes.”
Or, if you have specific bequests or shares designated for family members, the charitable bequest may say:
“All the rest, residue, and remainder of my estate, both real and personal, wherever situated, I give, devise, and bequeath to the Anabaptist Foundation, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation organized under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with headquarters at 31285 State Hwy. 27, Guys Mills, PA, for its general purposes.”
A few questions to consider:
- While it is appropriate to meet the needs of and make gifts to my family, what is the balance between meeting those needs and allowing family members to learn their own life lessons regarding work and stewardship? Are there situations where too much inheritance could weaken personal accountability or trust in God for the future?
- Although I’ve given throughout my life as I was able, is there a more significant contribution I’d like to make for a certain charity? Would a bequest gift be a special opportunity to make a larger gift?
- Would creation of a Family Endowment Fund at Anabaptist Foundation be a way to involve and unify both my children and grandchildren in giving and in making decisions regarding the assets I’ll leave behind at death?