We Give

(Part 3 of 5)

Timothy 6:7. -“For we brought nothing into this world and we can take nothing of it.”

Wills are mentioned in the Book of Common Prayer, page 445 – “The Minister of the Congregation is directed to instruct the people, from time to time, about the duty of Christian parents to make prudent provision for the well-being of their families, and of all persons to make will..”

Some families have already planned to use their wills to support St. George’s!  We created the 1849 Society honoring eight families several years ago who had already remembered St. George’s in their wills. This is a way to acknowledge and recognize a person’s gift and to encourage them “to spread the word” on the benefits of leaving the church a gift.

Funds for the Church are a precious commodity in this unpredictable society. We may be increasingly dependent on planned gifts for supporting parts of our long term mission in the future.

Leaving gifts in wills and trusts is one of the easiest ways to support the church. You give nothing up now and your decision for a bequest can be changed prior to death.   A bequest is a special gift made to St. George’s through your will that can offer several benefits:

• Charitable gifts in your will are 100 percent deductible for estate tax purposes.
• A charitable bequest could reduce or eliminate estate taxes.
• Supporters can often make larger gifts through their will than are possible with current income.

Beyond the dollars, this is a special act that extends your love of St. George’s past your lifetime.  It’s a way to unite your entire family around the church even if they don’t attend regularly.

You can easily add a gift in your existing will. All you need is a codicil, a legal term for an addition to a will.  It references a specific section of the Will, revokes it and substitutes a new section. You lawyer can draw up one or in this digital age, make the changes and print another copy of the will.

Of course this assumes you have a will! With a will you create your own plan for what happens after your death. If you don’t have one then you are under the “government plan.”  If you die without a will, the court will appoint an administrator. The administrator will inventory and collect your property, pay any debts and taxes owed, and distribute any remaining property according to Virginia law.  The distributions may not fit into your desires.  Each of these steps takes time and money, and the expenses will be reimbursed out of your estate.

With a will you are open to possibilities for donations:

1. You can gift a specific dollar amount.
   2. You can gift a percentage of your estate off the top or a gift from the balance or the residue of your estate. What percent?  1% to 5% would be one answer. On a $500,000 estate that would be between $5,000 and $25,000. You need to factor other entities to which to donate.  You could relate the gift to funding an activity over several years. Using this $500,000 estate you could be more generous and donate 10% and fund the Table for about a year.
   3.   You can make a beneficiary designation of certain assets, such as real estate, a savings account, stock, or life insurance policy.  You keep the benefits of these assets during your lifetime but pass them on at death.  To arrange this, you contact the holder of the assets and request the appropriate “beneficiary designation” or “payable on death” form.

Lent is all about spiritual practices. One practice you should do in relationship to your will is reviewing it after so many years and especially when there is a change in your family – a new baby, a death of someone that had already been written into the will, changes in marriage partners, etc.  How has your wealth changed? Do gifts need to be added or changed?

I am ending these articles with a question for you – If you have written St. George’s into your will, please let me know?   If you haven’t, what is holding you back? Do you need a suggestion for a lawyer to do this? Let me know ben.hicks@stgeorgesepiscopal.net.  I will pick the best answer or if there are too many, a random one that is complete. The winner gets a $5 Hyperion card to “have one on me.”

Matthew 6:21 –“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Last week we began a five-part series on Planned Giving by looking at a definition of Planned Giving and exploring the topic.  Planned Gifts are future focused gifts that build treasure for this church.  At the same time the gifts allow a donor to express his or her personal values in the gift by integrating charitable, and personal financial goals. The common denominator is that they are given in gratitude for the resources given to us by God.

In part 2, we look at how you can give to St. George’s trusts and funds, the easiest way to get started in planned giving.  A basic question is why would you give to these trusts and funds?  These funds take care of long-term needs in the church that are beyond the scope of the budget.  Some needs may not be known now but will appear in the future. Proper funding of the trusts allow us to meet these needs at that time.

We have two planned giving funds that you can donate to during Lent. There are no minimums or limits in giving to these funds- any amount you give is helpful. In addition, you may honor someone or something in Lent – a loved one, family member, an organization. These funds are invested by the Diocese so they reap rewards beyond your initial gift and beyond this Easter.  Typically funds will double every 30 years without considering distributions.

The Memorial Trust Fund, created in 1951, was designed as a vehicle for bequests.  Its purposes are broad – for both real and personal property, “for founding charitable institutions,” “for the care of the sick, aged or helpless,” “for the care, health or recreation of children,” and “for recreation, educational, charitable or benevolent purposes.” There is a large unrestricted subfund within the Memorial Trust Fund. Currently, all the yearly earnings from this unrestricted fund go to operations, helping us attain our budget goals.

However, there are also restricted subfunds of the trust that retain their earnings and are intended for the future. Currently there are funds for music, flowers, altar and choirs, the discretionary fund. Earnings for these funds stay with these funds. This means you can establish your own restricted gift and donate funds to it. A college fund for youth? A fund that can be tapped for future mission trips?  A fund for replacement costs of the building (painting, utilities, etc.)? These are all possible, but we would need to let us know in advance that you want to create such a restricted fund to set up the paperwork.  Then, you could add to the balance periodically.

The General Endowment Fund, created 15 years ago, has more limited purposes – supporting outreach, capital additions and improvements. Unlike the Memorial Trust Fund it cannot accept restricted gifts. The earnings do not go toward the budget but they are usually distributed yearly by request from individuals or groups. The Vestry decides yearly how the earnings for the fund will be used with guidance from the General Endowment Fund Board. You can see examples of how this Fund is used in your church pew. The new brown Bibles were a gift from this fund in 2016.  In the past, it has provided scholarships for the preschool, sent children to South Dakota and purchased instruments for music and microphones for clergy. A planned gift helped to establish this fund. In December 2005, the Church received a large gift from the Estelle Arnold Estate and established an investment account with the Diocese entity Trustees for the Fund which manages many of our trusts and funds.

How to Give?

1. Easter Memorial: If you would like to give to the Memorial Trust or General Endowment Fund in memory of someone for  publication in the Easter bulletin, use this form and specify the fund there. You can make the donation via Paypal using that form.
2. Check: write the fund name (“Memorial Trust” or “Endowment Fund” in the memo line and leave it in the plate or send it by mail. You can add a “IMO” (in memory of) or “IHO” (in honor of) and name(s). (Be sure to specify Easter memorial if paying by check for publication of the memoriam in the Easter bulletin.)
3. Credit Card online: https://giving.ncsservices.org/dl/?uid=st905298 Choose “Quick Give” on the left and then under the “To” drop down box to choose the fund, Memorial Trust Fund or Endowment Fund (#6 and #7 on the list). Then add your credit card information.

Most of the additions to these funds come during Lent and Advent. Let me throw out a goal.  Could we add $1,200 in total to these funds by Easter? That’s only $200 per week for the congregation. This should be easy but we need to get started now!

I am ending these articles with a question for you – If you have given to either the Memorial Trust Fund or Endowment, why?  Will you support them in 2017?  Do you have an idea for an alternate fund that we could establish for planned giving?  Let me know ben.hicks@stgeorgesepiscopal.net.  I will pick the best answer or if there are too many, a random one that is complete. The winner gets a $5 Hyperion card to “have one on me.”

The magazine Forward Movement wrote about Lent on March 1: “Let us approach Lent as treasure hunters, discovering what we truly value, where we actually spend our time and energy, and what occupies our thoughts and worries. Let us name our treasures, and find our hearts.”

This is the first in a five part series on planned giving where some treasures will be named that can be built over your life that will help you and the church. For the church, they will help build up an endowment or may help start or complete a project. One planned gift by the Downman family before World War I helped buy part of a heating system. Planned Giving is about building the next St. George’s as a reflection of God’s abundant grace for this community.

Planned gifts can give back to you as well as benefit the church. Besides the intangible spiritual benefits and the idea of making a difference here, gift planning may help lower taxes and trade a gift for income. It could mean a tax deduction based on an asset or a monthly check based on an annuity product. Hopefully one or more examples we will cover will resonate with you and encourage you to make a planned gift.

First, a definition. Planned Gifts are future-focused gifts that build treasure for a church. Planned giving is one expression of the wise use of the personal resources God has entrusted to us. It is a call of intentionality – and so we plan. We hope to maximize our contribution toward future generations based on the generosity that has been shown to us.

Our timing is long term – over a lifetime. If you already give to our budget yearly through the fall stewardship campaign, this is the next step. These are treasures that accumulate over years and may go through several transitions. The timing is different from other times we come to you. In the fall stewardship campaign the focus was providing funds for next year. A capital campaign may look to 3-year period. Planned Giving is looking beyond both of these to build treasure not so much from your paycheck as from specific assets beyond the time periods mentioned above. It is intended to build a future that we cannot even imagine.

Planned Giving has a personal component. Planned Gifts are essential to help sustain future ministry by connecting a number of parishioners to act over their lives to support the church financially. They may isolate their gifts to support specific ministries for the future or the church in general. Planned giving helps parishioners impact more lives than they could ordinarily do individually and involve their entire families if they include the church in their estate plans. In Part 3 on wills you will see that planned giving is referenced in the Book of Common Prayer!

Different gifts are appropriate at different times in your life. In your 20s, perhaps some spare funds for the Endowment fund. In your 40s, you may have an asset you could donate (such as an older vehicle). Then when you hit 55 a charitable gift annuity or appreciated stock and at 65 a gift to the church through your will. Note that planned giving is appropriate for all – there are no minimum amounts, and there are a variety of means. We have to be creative here to show you the possibilities. You then need to see how a planned gift could work with your family’s financial goals.

Planned giving has a firm basis in Jesus’ teachings. Jesus does not condemn the accumulation of wealth as long as it serves a worthy purpose. In the parable of the talents (Mt. 25:14–30) Jesus commends the servant who multiplied what he had been given, that it might serve an even greater usefulness. Then in Luke, he condemned the man who only built a bigger barn for himself. We have to be concerned with goals of accumulation and how wealth is used.

So why are doing this in Lent? This week Ash Wednesday emphasized death. The words of this day echo language from the funeral liturgy, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” Some planned gifts, such as a will are only realized in death; others such as annuities area a tax planning vehicle in your life time but a final gift is recognized at death. This repetition reinforces another goal of Lent for creating ways of drawing us closer to God.

Over the next few weeks we will looking at various types of planned gifts:

• Gifts to St. George’s trusts and funds, such as the General Endowment Fund, Memorial Trust Fund
• Deferred Church gifts – wills
• Immediate Gifts – cash, securities, real estate
• Life income gifts – charitable gift annuities and trusts.

Our goal in this is to educate and to encourage you to act to support planned giving.

What does planned giving mean to you? Have you ever made or considered a planned gift? If so, which one(s) and why? Let me know ben.hicks@stgeorgesepiscopal.net by Tuesday March 7. I will pick the best answer, or if there are too many a random one with a completed answer. The winner gets at $5 Hyperion card to “have one on me.”