Helping Your Clients Show They Care
Money, mortality, and family relationships. Each of those topics alone can be tough for anyone to address head on, and when you combine them, it’s no wonder so many people put off setting up or updating their estate plans. Establishing a will, trust, and beneficiary designations forces a person to confront decisions about the ultimate division of their assets, and many people think estate planning is more expensive or more of a hassle than it really is.
Helping your clients get their affairs in order–well before they need to due to age or illness–is truly a gift to them and their heirs. It’s extremely stressful for surviving spouses, children, and other loved ones to be faced with the emotional stress and workload of financial disorganization and uncertainty, on top of dealing with grief. Updating estate plans also allows clients to make arrangements for gifts upon their death to their favorite charities.
Many people choose to support their favorite charities in an estate plan through a beneficiary designation. As you work with your clients, be sure to review the beneficiary designations on insurance policies and retirement plans. Pay close attention to tax-deferred retirement plans such as 401(k)s and IRAs. Typically, individuals will name their spouse as the primary beneficiary of these accounts to provide income following your death and to comply with legal requirements. But as you and your clients evaluate whom to name as a secondary beneficiary of these tax-deferred accounts, don’t automatically default to naming the children or a revocable trust. You and your clients may determine that naming a charity, such as a fund at the community foundation, is by far the most tax-efficient, streamlined way to make gifts to your favorite causes upon your death and establish a philanthropic legacy. A bequest like this avoids not only estate tax, but also income tax on the retirement plan distributions.
Please reach out to the team at the community foundation as you work with your clients on their estate plans. We can:
–Review the many tax benefits of naming a fund established by your clients at the community foundation as a beneficiary of their IRA or other tax-deferred retirement account
–Provide bequest language for your clients’ wills or trusts, properly describing their fund using the correct legal terms
–Provide language for a beneficiary designation, again properly describing your clients’ funds using the correct legal terms
–Work with you and your clients to update the terms of their donor-advised fund so that their wishes are carried out following their death, whether that is naming specific charities to receive distributions or naming children as successor advisors to the fund
We’ve all heard stories about the sad consequences of someone not having an estate plan, or even having out-of-date beneficiary designations. Estate planning documents, including wills, trusts, and beneficiary designations, often turn out to represent generous acts of clear distribution and conflict avoidance. An estate plan allows your clients to demonstrate how much they care about the people in their lives as well as their charitable passions.
Big or Small, Every Gift Matters
Simplicity, efficiency, and effectiveness have long been cornerstones of working with the community foundation to carry out charitable goals. Time and time again at the community foundation, we see how easily donors who’ve established a donor-advised or other type of fund are able to not only fulfill their big-picture charitable goals, but to act quickly to respond to critical needs in the community as they occur..
Indeed, the flexibility of working with the community foundation allows you to support the causes you love at a financial level that meets your charitable giving budget. Early in the year, many of our fund holders transfer highly-appreciated stock to their donor-advised fund, for example, at the community foundation so that they are prepared to activate their annual giving right away.
At every level of giving, philanthropy is a catalyst for improving quality of life. Indeed, anyone with a willingness to give can be a philanthropist. Whether you’re using your donor-advised fund to give $250 to a college or university, $2500 to a food bank, or $25,000 to an art museum’s endowment, you’re making a difference.
Consider that small donations from a large number of people can make a huge difference. This is especially true for responses to disasters and humanitarian tragedies. On the other end of the spectrum, very large donations to an organization can transform its ability to scale and serve a much greater population.
In so many ways, whether gifts are large or small or somewhere in between, philanthropy creates the margin of excellence that helps communities, families, and individuals thrive. The team at the community foundation is here to help you achieve satisfaction and impact with your giving at any level.
Estate Planning Leads to Giving Now and Later
Wanda McCulley’s earliest memory of a charitable act was when the church where her father was quite active needed a bus to transport members to and from various activities. “He bought the church a bus,” Wanda said. His generosity stuck with her and not only helped lay the groundwork for her own charitable giving, but also informed her decision-making when she began to put her affairs in order.
Wanda was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. She recalls her kindergarten graduation where the students were asked to dress in an outfit that represented what they wanted to be when they grew up. Wanda dressed as a nurse.
Wanda graduated from college with a nursing degree in 1971 and began working at Lebonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis. Soon after Wanda began earning money of her own, she started sending monthly contributions to St. Jude’s Hospital for Children, and continues to do so to this day.
She worked at Lebonheur Children’s Hospital for a few years and then took a job with one of the first Planned Parenthood organizations. From there she moved to Chicago and worked as a Labor and Delivery nurse, which ended up being her passion. One of her patients in Chicago was also one of her Planned Parenthood patients! From Chicago, she moved to Boston and continued to work as a L&D nurse. After relocating to Maryland she started her operating room career at the National Institutes of Health. From there she went on to work at Kaiser Permanente, and other ambulatory surgery centers. All in all, she worked in the nursing field for 43 years.
Wanda started putting down roots in Hampshire County in 1997 when she bought some land in Augusta. In 1999 she built a cabin and began spending weekends in the county. After retiring in 2014, she made Hampshire County her full-time home, and has grown to love the county very much.
She recalls Patty Anderson and Paul and Lisa Roomsburg befriending her when she first moved to the county. “They always made a point to include me in their activities”, she said. “I never felt unwelcome or as a “come-here” because of their warm and immediate acceptance and continued friendship”.
Patty was also instrumental in encouraging Wanda’s involvement with Warm the Children, the Romney Backpack Program, the Hampshire Co-Op and Artisans Market, and others. More recently, Wanda has grown to love The River House, and seldom misses an Herb Club meeting.
Wanda started thinking about estate planning when her brother pointed out that because he was her only immediate living family member, he would likely be the beneficiary of her estate. This prompted her to seek advice for creating a plan. “I not only wanted to provide for some other extended family members and friends, but also had some charitable interests, and wasn’t quite sure how to include them.”
Wanda turned first to her Edward Jones financial advisor who helped craft a plan that would maximize tax savings during her lifetime, and minimize tax burdens for any individual beneficiaries. She also advised Wanda to consult with an attorney to prepare a Will.
When Wanda met with her attorney, Julie Frazier, she had some ideas about how she wanted to give back; she wanted to help students pursue continuing education in a field that inspired them, and she wanted to do something to more broadly benefit people in the county she had grown to love. However, the specific details about how to fulfill her intentions were not so clear, and Julie advised her to contact the Community Foundation.
After discussing her goals and the resources she wanted to use to achieve them with community foundation staff, and some additional consultations with her professional advisors, Wanda created two shell agreements with the Hampshire County Community Foundation, detailing the name and purpose of two charitable endowments to be funded through her estate: the Wanda McCulley Scholarship Fund, and the Wanda McCulley Family Crisis Center Fund.
Ultimately, the shell agreements were activated earlier than expected when Wanda decided to cash out one of her retirement accounts and endow the funds. Several months later, her financial advisor notified her that she had to take a required minimum distribution from her IRA and recommended adding it to her funds at the Community Foundation to reduce her tax burden. Both funds will be making grants this year.
Wanda initially chose to work with the Community Foundation because of its stability and permanency, knowing that what she set in motion today will continue long after she’s gone. When she wanted to change her original plans, though, she found that the Foundation’s flexibility and the fact that she could go ahead and make gifts to her funds while she is still living an equally attractive benefit. “I am happy and thankful that Julie referred me to the Hampshire County Community Foundation.”
A Legacy Continues with the Vernon and Myrtle Webster Scholarship
The Hardy County Community Foundation is pleased to welcome the addition of the Vernon and Myrtle Webster Scholarship Fund.
Myrtle Webster established the Vernon Webster Scholarship shortly after Vernon’s death in 1980. After the death of Myrtle in 2009, their three children, Vernon, Buddy, and Annabelle, added to it and changed the name to the Vernon and Myrtle Webster Scholarship. The scholarship has been administered by the Hardy County Board of Education, but was recently transferred to the Hardy County Community Foundation where it will continue to honor the legacy of two exceptional individuals who valued and supported education.
Vernon Webster was born in 1910 near Wardensville, WV, the oldest of three sons whose father died when he was twelve years old. Myrtle (Shockey) Webster was born in 1917 near Moorefield, into a family of 8 brothers and sisters.
Vernon operated a saw mill for a while then drove a truck for Rockingham Poultry for several years while Myrtle owned and managed a restaurant in the 1950’s. They eventually decided to open a television, appliance, and furniture store known as VW Webster Furniture and Appliances until they retired. Myrtle clerked the store and Webster did the deliveries and television and appliance repair. They were members of Duffy Memorial United Methodist Church in Moorefield. Vernon was a long-time member of the Moorefield Lions Club and served on the Moorefield Town Council.
Both Vernon and Myrtle had only eighth-grade educations, and while they still achieved great success as a result of their initiative, perseverance, and hard work, they always saw the value of a good education. They staunchly supported funding initiatives for the local school system and were strong supporters of higher education. Nearly all their descendants and their spouses have acquired or are pursuing college degrees.
The Webster’s interest in supporting education grew out of attending their children’s sporting events at Moorefield High School. Vernon and Buddy were active in three sports and Annabelle was a cheerleader.
Myrtle had a great love of high school basketball and attended games into her late 80’s. Over the decades she watched her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren play. She also grew to know many of the other players and their parents.
As Myrtle watched the students play, she took an interest in their futures and always enjoyed hearing about them becoming successful adults and reaching their full potential. She wanted to help others further their education and believed in rewarding academic excellence and community involvement. A scholarship seemed like a great way to achieve both. Vernon and Myrtle’s commitment to education has benefitted Moorefield High School seniors for over 40 years, and will continue to do so another 40 years and beyond.
The Hardy County Community Foundation is currently accepting applications for scholarships, including the Vernon and Myrtle Webster Scholarship, now through 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 28th for the 2024-25 school year. Moorefield and East Hardy high school seniors scheduled to graduate this spring are invited to apply using an online application which may accessed online at: https://ewvcf.awardspring.com
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