Give a gift. Make a difference.

You can make a gift of securities to Congregation Beth Israel at any time, including through a bequest or other planned gift. During your estate planning, include the asset in your will as a bequest or place it in a trust and your executor or trustee will carry out your wishes.

A bequest means including a specific gift in your will. It allows you to direct some of your money or property to Congregation Beth Israel or another person or entity after your death. A bequest reduces the total value of your estate for tax purposes. A bequest to CBI is one of the easiest ways to make a gift to preserve Jewish life in Charlottesville. You need a written will to make a bequest. Working with an estate attorney, include or add a sentence to your will or trust agreement specifying to whom and how much you would like to give. The amount can be either a dollar amount, a specific thing (such as real estate you own), or a percentage of your estate. You can leave assets to support general purposes or restrict them to a specific program or fund.

A charitable gift annuity allows you to make a significant gift to Congregation Beth Israel while receiving interest income during your lifetime. Charitable gift annuities may be created to produce a lifetime stream of income for one or two people – usually the donor and spouse – but could also support a disabled child during his or her lifetime. Setting up a charitable gift annuity is relatively simple and can generally be done just by filling out a form and transferring assets to fund it. It can be funded with cash, securities, or real estate. Large nonprofit organizations, such as universities, manage charitable gift annuities in house. Smaller organizations like CBI do not have the resources to manage these gift vehicles in house, and instead work with an outside organization such as the National Gift Annuity Foundation (NGAF). In this case, a donor makes a contribution to NGAF, which provides the donor or named beneficiary with a fixed payment for life. Upon the death of the donor or other non-charitable beneficiary, NGAF forwards the principal of the charitable gift annuity to CBI as the designated gift recipient by the donor.

A charitable lead trust is a kind of irrevocable trust, which is designed to provide income to one or more charities, such as Congregation Beth Israel, for a specified period of time. At the end of the trust term, or upon the death of the donor, the remaining assets go to family members or other non-charitable beneficiaries. A charitable lead trust can reduce income tax, gift tax, and estate tax. It can be structured as an annuity trust or a unitrust. An annuity trust pays out a fixed sum of money every year for a set period of time, or the life of the annuitant. A unitrust pays out a set percentage of the next asset value of the trust every year. You need to work with a tax or estate advisor to create a charitable lead trust and the trust can be funded with cash, securities, or real estate, such as rental property.

A charitable remainder trust is an irrevocable trust that lets you donate assets to Congregation Beth Israel upon your death but, in the meantime, allows you or another person you designate to draw income from the donated assets. It can be structured to make payments for your lifetime, or for another person’s lifetime, or for a specified period of time, such as 20 years. After the death of the donor or the non-charitable beneficiary, the trust passes on the remaining assets to the charitable beneficiary named in the trust. You need to work with a trust and estate attorney to draw up a legal trust document, specify the beneficiaries, and fund it with cash, property, or other assets.

To donate through an insurance policy, you take out a life insurance policy on yourself and name Congregation Beth Israel as a primary beneficiary. You may buy either a term life policy, which lasts for a set number of years, or a whole life policy, which lasts for your lifetime. Buying a life insurance policy allows you to make relatively small premium payments while you are alive that will secure a relatively large gift to the charitable beneficiary at your death.

You can make a gift of real estate to Congregation Beth Israel at any time, including at your death through a bequest or placing the real estate in a charitable trust.

A revocable living trust allows you to place assets inside a trust and designate them to Congregation Beth Israel. A revocable living trust also enables you to avoid the public probate process and keep your estate plans and assets private. A revocable living trust is a document drawn up with an attorney specializing in wills and estates. With a revocable trust, unlike an irrevocable trust, you can change this document up to the date of your death.