A novel approach to legacy donations with long-term benefits supported by numerical illustrations

Abstract

Philanthropic donors face challenges in matching the causes to which they donate, the time horizon—and thus impact—of their donations, and the charitable vehicles they choose for making contributions. Wealthier donors may elect to create their own foundations and customize their charitable support. Less wealthy donors have limited choices: they may contribute to a nonprofit's current operations or to existing nonprofit endowments. We present a novel approach for making charitable donations, blending aspects of each of these strategies. Our approach has potential long-term financial benefits, allows donors to control their charitable donations in a convenient and easy-to-implement manner, can be established through an existing nonprofit organization, expands opportunities for more donors because it requires a smaller corpus contribution with lower management costs than creating a foundation, provides tax savings in the United States and other countries (e.g., the UK, Canada, and Australia) comparable to other planned giving vehicles, and may be implemented during one's lifetime using donor advised funds or as part of a legacy plan through the donor's estate documents, which is when the long-term benefits accrue.