Planned Giving - Using Your Head & Your Heart

By Sara Elward, Manager of Planned Giving at KCTS9 and member of the GSBA Scholarship Steering Committee. Republished from the Fall 2013 Perspective magazine.

Whenever you attend the Scholarship Awards Dinner or read a scholar profile in a GSBA publication, do you think, “These scholarship recipients are so amazing. I wish I could do more to support this program.” You can through a bequest in your will or trust.

USING YOUR HEAD

Making a bequest is easy. If you are creating a will or trust or if you are revising an existing one, you can make a provision for the GSBA Scholarship Fund in one of several ways including a specific bequest, a percentage of your estate or a contingent bequest. You can also consult your attorney about adding a codicil or amendment to an existing will or trust as a way of making such a gift.

Making a bequest is revocable. You can change your will during your lifetime to reflect your changing circumstances. Making a bequest of a percentage of your estate means that regardless of the size of the estate, the people and organizations like GSBA which have been important in your life, will be part of your legacy.

You retain control of your assets during your lifetime. Many of us are concerned about outliving our resources and a bequest means that all of our resources are available to us during our lives. Because the gift is not made until after your death, you eliminate any worry that you are giving away resources you might need.

You may reduce your estate taxes. If you have a taxable estate (currently anything over $2 million in Washington state and about $5 million for federal taxes), any amount you give to a charitable organization is removed from the taxable estate amount.

USING YOUR HEART

Like you, I care deeply about creating future LGBT leaders, about the crucial role education plays in creating them and about the message that these scholarships send to the recipients: You are a valuable person with a promising future and we are here to support you. The excitement and gratitude that is expressed by scholar after scholar let’s me know that these gifts have impact, now and far into the future beyond anything I can imagine.

If you would like to create a legacy of caring and hope, please consider a bequest to GSBA. You might want to establish a scholarship or make a gift to the endowment. There are many ways to include GSBA scholarships in your estate and we will be happy to help you create the legacy you want to leave behind.

Including GSBA in your will or trust is an easy, revocable way to make a larger gift than you may be able to make during your lifetime and it ensures that your personal legacy of commitment to the future of our community will be carried on after you are gone.

Sara’s Tip: If you have already included GSBA in your estate, please let Jessica Wootten (JessicaW@thegsba.org) know as we would like to welcome you to the Rainbow Club which recognizes our legacy donors.