Legacy giving: A conversation that’s full of opportunity August is National Make-A-Will Month. This means your clients may be reading articles and hearing about estate planning more this month than usual, which makes the next few weeks a perfect time to prompt your clients to review their estate plans–or get their wills and trusts in order if they haven’t done so yet. Charitable giving is an important part of any estate planning conversation. Certainly, bold, legacy-making plans are frequently in the news because of the highprofile people who establish them. Your clients may need to realize that they, too, and nearly anyone, really, can leave a legacy to support favorite charitable causes. By discussing what legacy charitable gifts are, how they work, what the client has in mind, and then formalizing the client’s plan with the proper legal and financial documentation, you can help your clients tie up a few of “life’s loose ends” far in advance of when that legacy gift is actually made—and give your client the peace of mind of knowing it will actually get done. Clients’ charitable giving intentions and the possibility of establishing legacy gifts should be a routine and standard topic of any financial or estate planning discussion, alongside provisions in an estate plan for family and loved ones. Here’s a primer to help you simplify key principles as you convey to your clients what they need to know about leaving a legacy: Q: What is a legacy gift to a charity? A: Encourage your clients to think of leaving a charitable legacy as a post-life gift that the client structures in advance. Legacy gifts are often referred to as planned giving. Q: What assets can be used to make a legacy gift? A: Like the gifts to charity that your clients are already making during their lifetimes, cash, stock (especially highly appreciated stock), real estate, life insurance, and an IRA beneficiary designation (which is extremely tax effective) are examples of assets that can be the subject of a legacy gift. A legacy gift can be expressed in a client’s estate planning documents as a dollar amount, a percentage of the whole, or a legacy gift of the assets themselves. Your client will want to choose assets carefully, enlisting your expertise.
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