Legacy gifts provide future support for COD and significantly alter students’ lives. Contributions by will, trust, life-income arrangements, and endowment gifts all represent generous forms of legacy giving. These gifts represent powerful and meaningful ways for individuals to create a philanthropic legacy for their community and the organizations they care about. We encourage you to take advantage of the many tax benefits of making a planned gift.
The Benefits of Making Bequests
A bequest is one of the most popular and flexible gifts to make. With the help of an advisor, you can include language in your will or trust specifying a gift be made to family, friends and COD as part of your estate plan.
- You leave a lasting legacy to be remembered.
- You lessen the burden of taxes on your family.
- You may receive estate tax savings.
A bequest can be made in several ways:
- You can gift a specific dollar amount or asset.
- You can gift a percentage of your estate.
- You can make a gift from the balance or residue of your estate.
- You can make a beneficiary designation of certain assets.
Charitable Gift Annuity
You may be tired of living at the mercy of the fluctuating stock and real estate markets. A charitable gift annuity is a gift made to the COD Foundation that can provide you with a secure source of fixed payments for life.
Benefits include:
- Receive fixed payments to you or another annuitant you designate for life.
- Receive a charitable income tax deduction for the charitable gift portion of the annuity.
- Benefit from payments that may be partially tax-free.
- Further our mission to enhance the quality of education by advancing COD.
How a Charitable Gift Annuity Works:
- You transfer cash or property to College of the Desert Foundation.
- In exchange, we promise to pay fixed payments to you for life. The payment can be quite high depending on your age, and a portion of each payment may even be tax-free.
- You will receive a charitable income tax deduction for the gift portion of the annuity.
- You also receive satisfaction, knowing that you will be helping to further our mission.
If you decide to fund your Gift Annuity with cash, a significant portion of the annuity payment will be tax-free. You may also make a gift of appreciated securities to fund a gift annuity and avoid a portion of the capital gains tax.
IRA Charitable Rollover
If you are 70½ or older, an IRA charitable rollover is a way you can help continue our work and also receive a tax benefit this year.
- Avoid taxes on transfers of up to $100,000 from your IRA to the COD Foundation.
- Satisfy your required minimum distribution (RMD) for the year.
- Reduce your taxable income, even if you do not itemize deductions.
- Make a gift that is not subject to the deduction limits on charitable gifts.
- Help further the work and mission of the COD Foundation.
How an IRA Charitable Rollover gift works:
- Contact your IRA plan administrator to make a gift from your IRA to us.
- Your IRA funds will be directly transferred to the COD Foundation to help continue our important work.
- Please note that IRA charitable rollover gifts do not qualify as a charitable deduction.
- Please contact us if you wish for your gift to be used for a specific purpose.
Voted Outstanding Fundraising Professional for 2020 by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Elizabeth Chambers is the Planned Giving Consultant for the COD Foundation. The Foundation is fortunate to have Elizabeth as an advocate and fundraiser.
To learn more, please visit www.codlegacy.org or contact Elizabeth Chambers with the COD Foundation 760.409.5024 or at echambers@collegeofthedesert.edu.
