Your Charitable Intentions: Plan to Plan!

Many individuals and families spend a great deal of time setting up a charitable plan they feel good about, from establishing a fund at the Foundation, updating IRA beneficiary designations, and leaving general instructions about the causes they want to support. Then life moves on, and the plan sits quietly in place, often for years, while the donor assumes everything will work exactly as intended. 

The challenge is that charitable plans can outlive the paperwork. Over time, family structures change, attorneys and advisors retire, and donors’ own priorities evolve. Even when your charitable intentions remain strong, the documents that express those intentions can become outdated without anyone noticing. This can create confusion later, especially for family members trying to carry out your wishes during a stressful time. 

A simple way to avoid this is to treat charitable planning the way you treat other important parts of your financial life: review it periodically. As the permanent philanthropic home for Delaware County, we are uniquely positioned to help you ensure your generosity keeps working, year after year, for generations to come. That’s what it means to be “here for good.” 

If you have a fund at the Foundation, we encourage you to connect with our team once a year to go over key considerations such as: 

• Confirming that beneficiary designations on your IRA and insurance are up to date and successor advisor designations on your charitable funds are current and that the people you named still understand and are willing to carry out your wishes 

• Evaluating whether a portion of your fund might support the Foundation’s work in Delaware County following your death by building resources that will serve the community permanently 

• Confirming that your attorney has included the correct fund name and language in your will or trust 

• If you have named your fund as a beneficiary of a retirement account or life insurance policy, confirming that the fund is correctly named and that your tax and financial advisors have copies for their records 

• Considering ways to deepen your involvement during your lifetime, such as by including children and grandchildren in decision making 

• Developing a brief statement of purpose for the Foundation’s permanent file that explains why you care about certain causes and what you hope your giving will accomplish over time 

Please remember that these check-ins are our pleasure. Your vision is our vision. When our community looks back 50 or 100 years from now, they will inherit the scholarships we endowed, the organizations we strengthened, and the resources we built together. A brief conversation today can give you peace of mind and strengthen the long-term impact of your giving for generations to come. 

Contact: Monika Collins for more information!