Planned giving is a charitable gift you arrange now and complete later, sometimes during your lifetime and sometimes after it. It covers bequests, beneficiary designations, gifts of appreciated assets, and arrangements that pay you an income first and the charity afterward. What makes a gift planned is not its size. It is that the timing and the structure were chosen on purpose.
What planned giving actually is
Most charitable giving is immediate. You decide to give, you give, and the organization spends the money. A planned gift separates those steps. You settle the terms now, and the money moves at a point you choose: when a property sells, when you reach a certain age, at your death, or across a fixed term of years.
Two things usually mark a planned gift. It sits inside your financial or estate plan rather than beside it, and it often involves something other than the cash in your checking account. An IRA. A life insurance policy you no longer need. Shares you have held for twenty years. Ground you farm. That is why these conversations tend to involve an attorney or a CPA as well as the charity.
None of it requires wealth. Someone with a paid-off house and a retirement account they do not expect to spend has more planned-giving options than someone with a large salary and nothing set aside.
Planned giving vs. legacy giving
The two terms overlap and get swapped freely. Legacy giving normally means gifts that take effect after your lifetime, chiefly bequests and beneficiary designations. Planned giving is the wider term. It includes all of those, and it also includes gifts you make, and see the results of, while you are still here.
The planned giving vehicles, at a glance
There are more structures available than most donors expect, and they behave very differently from one another. This is the short version.
| Vehicle | When the charity receives it | Why donors choose it |
|---|---|---|
| Bequest in a will or trust | After your lifetime | Costs nothing now and can be changed at any time |
| Beneficiary designation | After your lifetime | Added on a form, with no attorney needed |
| Retirement plan assets | After your lifetime | Heirs owe income tax on them; a charity does not |
| Qualified charitable distribution | During your lifetime | Moves money straight out of an IRA without it counting as income |
| Appreciated stock or mutual funds | Now | Avoids tax on the built-in gain |
| Life insurance | Now, or after your lifetime | Turns a policy you no longer need into a larger gift |
| Charitable gift annuity | Now, with payments back to you for life | Fixed income first, charity keeps the remainder |
| Charitable remainder trust | At the end of the trust term | Income to you or your family first, charity last |
| Donor-advised fund | Now to the sponsoring charity, out to nonprofits over time | Deduction when you fund it, grant recommendations later |
| Real estate | Now, or after your lifetime | Sheds a maintenance burden and avoids tax on the gain |
Several of those carry enough detail to need a guide of their own. Wills, bequests and charitable trusts are covered in the guide to leaving money to charity in your will. If you own a traditional IRA and have reached the qualifying age, start instead with the guide to qualified charitable distributions for Kansas retirees. Gifts of stock and gifts of a retirement plan each have a separate guide on this site, and the choice between a donor-advised fund and a private foundation is its own comparison.
How the tax side generally works
Federal treatment varies by vehicle, and the numbers move. As a general matter: an outright gift produces a deduction in the year you make it; a gift of an asset you have held long enough avoids tax on the appreciation; and a deferred gift may produce a partial deduction now, based on the value the charity is expected to receive. Percentage-of-income ceilings apply, and they are more generous for gifts to a public charity than for gifts to a private foundation. The IRS classifies the Miami County Community Foundation as a publicly supported charity under section 170(b)(1)(A)(vi), which places it in the more favorable category. Run your own numbers with your own tax advisor before you commit to anything.
Who this is actually for
Planned giving gets marketed at retirees, which is too narrow. The people it suits are the people who own something rather than the people who earn something.
- You own an asset worth more than you paid for it: stock, ground, a share of a business.
- You have retirement savings you do not expect to spend in your lifetime.
- You are selling a business or a farm and want to handle the gain deliberately rather than in April.
- You already give every year and want the same money to go further.
- You want something to carry a name after you, whether your own or someone else’s.
- You would rather decide this yourself than leave your family guessing.
If none of those describe you yet, an ordinary annual gift does the job perfectly well, and the question can wait until something changes.
How funds work at the Miami County Community Foundation
The Foundation is a 501(c)(3) community foundation, established in 2007 and serving Miami County, Kansas. It is run by a volunteer board, with Tammy Booe as executive director, and its funds are held care of First Option Bank. If a planned gift here ends up in a named fund, these are the terms that fund would sit under.
There are two categories. An endowed fund starts at $10,000 and stays permanently invested, and the balance cannot fall below the amount put in. In Booe’s words, “you never, you cannot fall below that amount.” Under a 5% spending policy only the earnings are available, so a $10,000 endowed fund makes roughly $500 available to spend. An expendable fund starts at $1,000 and can be spent all the way down; once it is spent, it closes. The fee is 2% in total, made up of a 1% administrative fee and a 1% community support fee, and the community support portion pays for the Foundation’s own operations. Setting a fund up takes seven to ten business days. Individuals, families, businesses and churches all hold funds here, and many of those funds began after someone died.
The results are specific rather than abstract. The D.O. Smith Memorial Scholarship awards $3,000 to a permanent Miami County resident who holds a CNA certification or has been accepted into a nursing program. The Steve Pepoon Memorial Scholarship gives $1,000 to a Paola High School senior heading into writing, film, television or theater; Pepoon was an Emmy Award-winning television writer and a Paola native. The Johanna Vickrey Nursing Scholarship gives $750 in Louisburg. Almost every scholarship here is applied for through the student’s own high-school counselor rather than through the Foundation. Alongside them run three grant programs: Shifting Gears, Stomp Out Suicide, and the Avelyn SonShine Journey, which gives away children’s bibles rather than money.
What the first conversation looks like
There is no form to download and no application to submit. A planned gift here begins as a phone call or an email, and it goes better when you arrive with a few things settled and a few questions ready.
- What you want the money to do. A school, a cause, a town, a person’s memory. Specific beats general, and specific is what a fund agreement has to say.
- Which asset you have in mind, and whether it can be accepted. Cash and checks are straightforward. For stock, real estate, an insurance policy or a transfer out of an IRA, ask the Foundation directly rather than assuming; the answer depends on the asset.
- Whether the gift should last or be spent. That is the endowed-or-expendable choice, and it sets the minimum you need.
- Whose name goes on it, if anyone’s. Anonymity is normal. “We have a number of private donors that are not listed on this page that give money to Miami County nonprofits at their discretion,” says Booe.
- When it should happen. Now, at a sale, or through your estate. The vehicle follows from the timing, not the other way round.
- What it costs, and how the fee is applied. Ask, and get the answer in writing before you sign a fund agreement.
- Bring your own attorney and tax advisor. The wording of a will or trust clause is their work, and it should be drafted for you rather than copied off a website.
The Foundation is at 702 Baptiste Dr, Paola, KS 66071, on (913) 404-7287, and at info@micocf.org. A gift by check is made payable to the Miami County Community Foundation, with the fund name written in the memo line rather than on the payee line.
Whatever the asset, decide early whether the gift should be restricted to one purpose or unrestricted.
Where to start
If you are early in this, read the giving methods the Foundation publishes on its ways to give page, then look through the funds it already holds to see what a finished version of the idea looks like. If the missing piece is a will or a trust, the charitable estate planning checklist is the next thing to read. And if you already have a particular asset and a particular idea, the shortest route is the phone number above.
