A University in Motion. Apply now!
Create a Legacy
As an Auburn University at Montgomery benefactor, your giving can achieve personal goals, enhance your financial security and help shape the University’s future. Planned Giving is a technique of including charitable giving in your total financial estate plan. Download Planned Giving Brochure PDF or view the interactive book.
Many AUM alumni and friends who wish to help shape the University’s future have chosen a planned gift to perpetuate their loyal support beyond their lifetime, while realizing substantial benefits for themselves today. These benefits can include significant savings on income and estate taxes, lifetime income streams and in some instances a greater amount of wealth passed on to family members with less federal estate tax.
Aside from the financial benefits one might receive from making a planned gift to Auburn University Foundation, there is an intrinsic value in making such a gift. Planned gifts help maintain and advance the quality of education at AUM. Through a planned gift, you can create an endowed scholarship, a fund for excellence or an endowed professorship. The impact of these gifts reaches far beyond campus buildings and boundaries. Planned gifts to AUM ultimately benefit individuals who study, learn, teach, grow and give.
How do you want to create your legacy?
A will is a statement about what matters most in your life. By making a will, you can ensure that your intentions are clearly expressed, and that they will be followed by those administering your estate.
After providing for family, friends and others, many alumni and friends include a meaningful bequest to AUM in their will to continue their lifetime support. Including the Auburn University Foundation as a beneficiary of your will is one of the easiest ways to provide for future generations of AUM students and faculty.
To include the Auburn University Foundation in your will, please consult your attorney.
A gift of a life insurance policy or its proceeds is another easy way to make a planned gift to the Auburn University Foundation (AUF). This arrangement allows you to make a significant gift to AUF and use the tax savings to purchase a life insurance policy.
Listed below are several ways you can provide for AUM through a life insurance gift:
Retirement plans, such as an IRA or a 401(k), can be ideal vehicles to make a planned gift to AUM. By naming the AUF as the beneficiary of such a plan, significant estate and income taxes can be avoided since income taxes are usually due on undistributed funds in such plans, even after a person’s death. If a charitable remainder trust is established as beneficiary of the retirement plan of a donor, an income stream can be provided to a loved one after the donor’s death and most income and estate taxes on the undistributed plan assets can still be avoided.
You may give the Auburn University Foundation your personal residence or farm and retain the right to occupy the residence or operate the farm for the rest of your life. This provides a current income-tax charitable deduction for the present value of the remainder interest.
The term “farm” includes any land used by the donor for the production of agricultural products for the sustenance of livestock. The term “personal residence” is defined in the tax code regulations to include any property used by the donor as a personal residence even though it might not be the primary residence. A single family dwelling, condominium, or vacation home qualifies as a personal residence if used each year by the donor.
AUM and the Auburn University Foundation are not engaged in rendering legal or tax advice. For advice and assistance in specific cases, the services of an attorney or other professional advisor should be obtained. Advice from legal counsel should be sought when considering these types of gifts.
A Charitable Remainder Trust is an instrument which provides an income stream for the life of the donor and/or a designated income beneficiary. At the termination of the trust, the principal of the trust is distributed to the Auburn University Foundation.
There are two types of charitable remainder trusts: unitrusts and annuity trusts.
Many alumni and friends wish to make a substantial deductible gift during their lifetime, but still want to receive an income stream from the cash, securities or property donated. This can be accomplished through several life income plan gifts.
Charitable Lead Trust is essentially the opposite of the charitable remainder trust. It pays income to the AUF for a period of years and later returns the principal of the trust to the donor or other loved ones. The lead trust can be one of the few ways to reduce taxes that would otherwise be due on assets left to succeeding generations. The charitable lead trust may freeze for estate and gift tax purposes the value of assets contributed to it as of the date of the trust’s establishment and distribute the assets (with any appreciation over the terms of the trust) to children or grandchildren at the end of the term.