Create a Legacy That Lasts
A Legacy Fund at the Athens Area Community Foundation can help you continue supporting the causes and organizations that matter to you for years to come.
A Legacy Fund allows you to leave a charitable gift to the Athens Area Community Foundation through your estate. You decide how you would like those charitable dollars to be used, and AACF works with you to document your intentions.
You may choose to support one or more nonprofit organizations that are meaningful to you. You can also direct your gift to an unrestricted fund, such as AACF’s Community Impact Fund, allowing your generosity to respond to the community’s most pressing needs now and in the future.
The Legacy Society with AACF gives you the flexibility to decide which causes and organizations your charitable dollars will support in the future.
Support What Matters to You: Designate your Legacy Fund for one nonprofit, several organizations, or broader community needs.
Keep Your Giving Flexible: Update your charitable goals over time without having to revise your estate documents if your plans for the fund change.
Bring Your Giving Together: A Legacy Fund can allow you to support multiple organizations through one charitable plan.
Create an Impact That Continues: Your charitable dollars can continue benefiting the organizations and community you care about beyond your lifetime.
Creating a charitable legacy is often part of a larger estate planning conversation. AACF can work alongside donors and their professional advisors to help incorporate charitable intentions into their broader estate planning.
For attorneys, financial advisors, accountants, and other professionals helping clients plan for the future, a Legacy Fund can offer a flexible way to incorporate charitable giving into those conversations. Your client can identify the organizations or community needs they want to support while AACF helps establish the fund that will carry out those charitable intentions.
AACF’s Legacy Society recognizes families and individuals who have included a fund at the Athens Area Community Foundation in their estate planning. Our Legacy Society members are investing in something that will continue beyond their lifetimes: a charitable legacy that can grow over time while benefiting the organizations and community they hold dear.
By letting AACF know about your plans, you also give our team the opportunity to understand your charitable goals and help make sure your future fund reflects the legacy you want to leave.
Bequests are one of the easiest ways to give to the Athens Area Community Foundation because donors retain complete control over the assets during their lifetime. Bequests can be a specific dollar amount, a percentage of the estate, or the residual that remains after all other bequests are made. Bequests may be made as an unrestricted gift to the Athens Area Community Foundation to be used as directed by the Board. Bequests may also be made to an existing fund or to a new fund to be established by the gift in the donor’s name.
Gifts of life insurance policies may be made by naming the Athens Area Community Foundation as the owner and beneficiary. The donor receives an immediate tax deduction approximately equal to the cash surrender value of the policy. Any premiums thereafter paid by the donor are deductible for income tax purposes. Insurance proceeds can be specified as an unrestricted gift or to a named fund at the Athens Area Community Foundation.
Donors may designate the Athens Area Community Foundation as the beneficiary of IRAs and retirement plans. The donor may specify the gift is unrestricted or may establish a fund in the donor’s name at the Athens Area Community Foundation.
A charitable remainder trust pays the donor or a beneficiary designated by the donor to receive regular income payments for life or a specified trust term (up to 20 years), and whatever remains will be transferred to the Athens Area Community Foundation. The donor receives an immediate charitable tax deduction for the present value of the gift in the year the gift is made. The CRT can be structured to pay fixed income or income that varies with the value of the trust. A CRT is useful for securities and real estate that have appreciated in value but earn little income since the assets of the trust can be sold and reinvested without incurring capital gains tax. The remainder of the trust paid to the Athens Area Community Foundation may be specified as an unrestricted gift or used to establish a new fund in the donor’s name.
A charitable lead trust pays annual payments for the donor’s life or for a specified number of years to a fund established at the Athens Area Community Foundation. The annual payments may be fixed or may be variable based on the value of the trust. When the trust terminates, the trust principal is distributed to family or others designated by the donor as the beneficiary.
Your charitable giving can continue making a difference long into the future. AACF welcomes conversations with individuals, families, and professional advisors who want to learn more about Legacy Funds and charitable estate planning.
Contact the Athens Area Community Foundation to start a conversation about your legacy.
The Athens Area Community Foundation is a public grantmaking foundation that builds community by encouraging long term giving through funds created by caring donors.
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