You can touch the future....

People from all walks of life are being encouraged to make gifts from their estates to nonprofit organizations of their choice by the new Leave a Legacy Siouxland program.

Leave a Legacy is a community-wide collaborative effort between local nonprofit organizations, estate and financial planning professionals, professional associations, local community foundations, corporate sponsors, and a variety of media outlets.

The Non-Profit Times estimates that over 70% of all households nationwide contribute to a charity each year. This same generosity, however, is not being expressed in terms of bequests and planned giving. Bequest giving, when adjusted for inflation, has remained constant at slightly less than 6% since 1987.

With experts predicting that between $10 - $40 trillion of net worth will be transferred to the baby boomer generation by the year 2040, the potential benefit from planned giving is enormous.

The Siouxland chapter of Leave a Legacy is the seventh such chapter launched in Iowa and one of more than 140 nationwide since it was founded in 1993 in Columbus, Ohio. The main goal of Leave a Legacy is to market the idea of estate planning and bequests through everything from media blitzes to billboards to fliers and mailings.

The Crittenton Center is one of the more than 40 area partners in the initiative.

Many of the organizations involved, such as Crittenton Center, wouldn't be able to allocate the time or resources to this kind of planned giving effort, but as a member of the Leave a Legacy Siouxland, raised awareness and the benefits of gift planning to both the donor and area organizations, have had tremendous impact on the quality of life in Siouxland.

The Leave a Legacy program stresses that a gift to a charity from an estate does not mean neglecting one's own family. Estate planning professionals can show how to take care of family members while remembering the charities of one's choice.

Ways of giving come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from quick and easy one-step solutions to more complex planning. Regardless of the size, tax consequences, or type of gift given, charitable gift planning can "touch the future" of an organization and a community by providing lasting benefits well beyond one person's lifetime.

How you can Leave a Legacy:

Leaving a Legacy means making a gift of money or property from an estate to

a nonprofit organization. The options in charitable estate giving offer something for everyone:

* Charitable Bequest in a Will
* Charitable Remainder Trust
* Charitable Lead Trust
* Gift Annuity
* Deferred Gift Annuity
* Life Insurance
* Retirement Accounts and Pension Plans
* Appreciated Stock
* Real Estate
* Combinations of the above