Summertime, and the Giving is Easy

Practical Benefits of Giving to Charity in Your Will

In Part One, I looked at why Paul and Janet decided to leave their entire estate to charity and how they went about doing that.

Paul and Janet are passionate about protecting the environment, ensuring clean water, and providing education for the next generation. Their Generosity Plan™ created the opportunity for them to support all these causes easily and efficiently with a charitable bequest.

A Generosity Plan Makes Giving in Your Will Simple

Rather than naming multiple charities in their wills, Paul and Janet simply named Abundance Canada as the beneficiary of their charitable gift. At the time their estate is settled, the bequest will fund their legacy of support as set out by their Generosity Plan. The distribution of donated capital and earnings will be managed by recommendations they established with Abundance Canada during their lifetime.

In your Generosity Plan, you recommend the charities and qualified donees you want your legacy gift to support and how much Abundance Canada should send to each. You also recommend over what period of time you want your gift distributed. Abundance Canada will manage and distribute the gift all at once or make regular disbursements over time.

Flexibility to Face Future Unknowns

Furthermore, you’re able to adjust these recommendations at any point during your lifetime. If you discover a new cause that inspires you to give, adding (or removing) a charity or qualified donee to your distribution recommendations is simple. Because the gift in your will is still designated for Abundance Canada, you just need to adjust the list of recommendations in your Generosity Plan. The advantage of this is that you don’t have to meet with your lawyer and incur the legal expenses associated with modifying your will. A phone call, email, or meeting with a gift planning consultant is all that’s needed to make the change.

Paul and Janet knew that some of the charities they wanted to support in their will with a charitable gift were doing great work now but might not be as active long-term. If a charity they named directly in their will was no longer operating at the time of their passing, that particular bequest could not be fulfilled. However, by naming Abundance Canada in their will as the recipient of their charitable bequest and providing a contingency list of charities in their Generosity Plan, their legacy of support could continue via an alternate charity.

A Generosity Plan Makes It Easy on Your Executor

Paul and Janet wanted to make settling their estates as easy as possible. With their Generosity Plan in place, their executors will only have to manage a single donation to Abundance Canada. The estate will receive a donation receipt for the amount of their bequest. Abundance Canada will manage their bequest as outlined in their Generosity Plan.

Paul and Janet’s Generosity Plan gives them peace of mind knowing that their charitable bequest will be managed efficiently and effectively after they’re gone. Until then, it gives them the freedom to focus on what matters most: the joy of giving today.