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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.
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?
The most common type of planned gift is made through a will or living trust. Your gift can be a specific dollar amount, a percentage of your estate, a specific asset, or a residual designation. These gifts have no immediate impact on your cash flow or your current financial planning and can represent a significant philanthropic investment in AUM. Your gift, which may be entitled to a charitable estate tax deduction, can be made to an area of your choice at AUM.
Sample language for legal documents:
To include AUM in your will or living trust, we suggest you share the following with your attorney or financial planner: “I hereby give, devise and bequeath (specific amount or asset, percentage of my estate/trust, or the residual of my estate/trust) to the Auburn University Foundation (Tax ID: #63-6022422) or its successor organization, a nonprofit corporation as described in section 170(c) of the Internal Revenue Code, located at 317 South College Street, Auburn, Alabama, 36849, to be used according to the most recently signed gift agreement on file at the Auburn University Foundation.”
You can make a gift to AUM through your bank account, brokerage account, retirement assets, or life insurance. A beneficiary designation takes precedence over a gift in a will or trust and enables you to support AUM by simply completing a change of beneficiary form.
You can make a charitable contribution to AUM by gifting an IRA, 401(k), 403(b) or other qualified retirement account by simply changing the beneficiary with your plan administrator. You can leave the entire plan to AUM or designate a portion and still benefit a loved one. This gift could also reduce income and estate taxes and simplify work for your executor.
If you are 70½ or older, an IRA Qualified Charitable Distribution may help you satisfy your Required Minimum Distribution and save money on taxes. You can direct your QCD to the Auburn University Foundation in support of AUM and reduce your taxable income, even if you do not itemize deductions.
Charitable gift annuities provide you with lifetime income while the remaining assets support your favorite programs at AUM. Your gift allows you and/or someone you designate to receive fixed payments for life, and you can elect to receive payments immediately or defer them until a later time. A portion of your annual payment will be tax-free, and you will be eligible for an immediate income tax deduction. AUM will receive the remainder of the fund after the lifetime of the last beneficiary.
Are you wondering what to do with a highly appreciated property? Creating a retained life estate with a farm, home, vacation property, or similar asset allows you to retain the right to use the property for your lifetime or a term of years and receive a charitable tax deduction today. Your estate may also be eligible for reduced probate costs.
This form of planned giving may allow you to protect assets for your children and grandchildren while reducing estate and gift taxes. A lead trust is an irrevocable arrangement in which you make a gift to a trust and the trust makes payments to the Auburn University Foundation in support of AUM for a period of years or for your lifetime. After the designated time frame, the remaining assets are paid to your designated beneficiaries, possibly at a reduced cost. This type of gift allows you to leverage assets that are likely to appreciate substantially during the life of the trust. Additionally, this gift will allow you to see the benefits of your generosity during your lifetime.
A charitable remainder trust allows you to make a gift of appreciated assets through a trust that pays you an income. An annuity trust provides fixed payments, and a unitrust provides variable payments, possibly providing a hedge against inflation. Your gift can help you avoid immediate capital gains tax on appreciated assets. You can choose payments for yourself and/or your spouse for life or for a period of years (not to exceed 20), and remaining trust assets will provide philanthropic support for AUM.
You can support AUM by making the Auburn University Foundation the owner and sole beneficiary of an existing or a new life insurance policy. This option can provide an immediate income tax deduction. Making AUM owner of a life insurance policy allows you to make a significant gift to the University with little expenditure. Alternatively, you can also make the Auburn University Foundation a primary beneficiary for a specific percentage or amount or a contingent beneficiary.
For more information, contact the Office of Gift Planning at [email protected] or (334) 844-7375.
