Discover the Benefits of Giving Wisely
Welcome to the Charitable Estate Planning section of Central Oregon Environmental Center’s (COEC) web site!
We've created this overview to tell you about some creative giving strategies – strategies that enhance you and your family's well being, as well as the future of COEC.
Making a planned gift offers you flexible and simple ways to combine philanthropy with your financial and estate planning. In fact, a planned gift may help you give more to protect our environment than you thought possible, while still providing you or someone you designate with favorable financial and/or tax benefits.
Planned gifts to the Central Oregon Environmental Center are about planning for the future: your future and the future of Central Oregon's natural environment. COEC programs depend upon your goodwill. To that end, there are many easy options from which you can choose – from naming the Environmental Center as a beneficiary in your will to a life-income arrangement.
Should you remember the Central Oregon Environmental Center with an estate gift, you will qualify to be come a Legacy Member of the Natural Heritage Society. Click here to learn more about the Natural Hertiage Society.
If you have already remembered COEC in your estate plan, or are planning to do so, please fill out our Confidential Intent Form. Click here to download the form.
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The following lists several ways to make a planned gift to COEC. The information is offered only for educational purposes. Your personal advisor(s) should always be consulted in the estate planning process.
BEQUESTS
A popular and easy planned giving option is providing for COEC with a bequest in your will or revocable trust. After your lifetime COEC receives the gift and applies it to the purposes(s) you specified.
Benefits
• Your assets remain in your control during your lifetime.
• You can modify your bequest if your circumstances change.
• You can direct your bequest to a particular purpose (check with COEC to make sure your gift can be used as intended).
• There is no upper limit on the estate tax deductions that can be taken for charitable bequests.
• You know that your gift will benefit COEC tomorrow just as you intend it to today.
For more detailed information on making a bequest to COEC, click here.
IRA GIFT
Naming COEC as the beneficiary of your IRA, 401(k) or other qualified plan is another simple way to give. After your lifetime, the residue of your plan can be passes to COEC tax-free.
Benefits
• You can escape both income AND estate tax levied on the residue left in your retirement plan by leaving it to COEC.
• Give the most-taxed asset in your estate to COEC and leave more favorably taxed property to your heirs.
• You can continue to take withdrawals during your lifetime.
• You can change the beneficiary or designation should your circumstances change.
INSURANCE GIFT
You can provide for a future gift to COEC by naming us as a beneficiary of a life insurance policy on your life. At death the proceeds are paid directly to COEC and we apply them to the program(s) you have designated.
Benefits
• If COEC becomes the owner and beneficiary of the policy you can receive a tax deduction for the gift.
• If using an existing policy that you no longer see as a necessary part of your financial plans, it can turn into a special future gift for COEC.
CHARITABLE REMAINDER UNITRUST
A very simple way to explain this type of gift is it is a gift that gives back by providing you income or income for your designated beneficiaries. How it works you transfer cash, securities or other appreciated property, such as real estate into a trust. Each year the trust pays a percentage of its value to you or to the beneficiaries you name. The trust value is re-computed annually, so payments change from year to year. When the trust terminates the remaining balance is passed on to COEC.
Benefits
• You receive an immediate income tax deduction for a portion of your contribution to the unitrust.
• The trust pays no capital gains tax when it sells the asset you have contributed to the trust.
• You or your designated beneficiaries receive income for life or for a term of years.
• You can make additional gifts to the trust as your circumstances allow and quality for additional tax deductions and increased trust payments.
• You have the satisfaction of making a significant gift that benefits you now and COEC later.
CHARITABLE GIFT ANNUITY
This is another gift that provides income. With this gift you transfer cash or appreciated securities to COEC and we pay you, or up to two annuitants, a lifetime annuity. The principal passes to COEC after the lifetime of the income beneficiaries.
Benefits
• You receive an immediate income tax deduction for a portion of your gift.
• Your annuity payments are treated as part ordinary income and part tax-free income.
• If the gift is funded with appreciated property, your annuity payments are also part capital gain income and part tax-free income.
• You have the satisfaction of making a significant gift that benefits you now and COEC later.
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You can leave a legacy that ensure's the future health and beauty of Central Oregon.
We would be pleased to talk with you in detail about these and other planned giving options. Contact Shauna Quistorff at (541) 385-6908 or shauna@envirocenter.org for more information.
We would be pleased to talk with you in detail about these and other planned giving options. Contact Shauna Quistorff at (541) 385-6908 or shauna@envirocenter.org for more information.
