Endowing Your Annual Gift

 

You may be one of the many individuals who regularly contribute to our organization. Possibly you have given for ten or more consecutive years. Your regular gifts help us budget for continuance of important services, and we thank you for your faithfulness.

 

If you would like to assure that your support continues indefinitely into the future, you might consider endowing your gift. You would leave a certain sum through your will or perhaps by naming us as a beneficiary of a retirement plan or life insurance policy, and that sum would be used to establish a permanent fund in your name. The distributed income from the fund would be a continuation of your annual gifts.

 

The size of an endowment necessary to provide a certain annual sum depends on the distribution percentage, which is determined by our board based on economic conditions. If it were four percent, for each $1,000 annual gift you want to sustain, an endowment of $25,000 would be required. For example, if you have been contributing $2,000 per year, an endowment if $50,000 would assure an annual distribution of $2,000. The annual amount would, of course, be larger if the distribution percentage is higher than four percent.

 

In setting the distribution percentage, our board wants the annual amount available for charitable purposes to keep pace with inflation. It expects that over time the total return of the endowment will exceed the percent distributed each year, which means that the endowment principal will grow, and the annual distributions will correspondingly increase.    

 

Just as our annual report lists contributors like you, our records will associate the endowment income with you, so, in a sense, you will be an annual contributor indefinitely, and you can assure that the charitable projects you value will not be diminished.