Charitable estate planning is the work of deciding what share of your estate goes to charity, choosing the instrument that will deliver it, and making the paperwork say so. It is a sequence rather than a single decision, and the first half of it is ordinary desk work you can do at a kitchen table before an attorney is involved.
The third week of October is National Estate Planning Awareness Week, designated by House Resolution 1499 in 2008 and observed every year since. If you have been meaning to get to this, here is the order to do it in.
The checklist, step by step
1. Inventory what you own, and mark what your will does not control
List every account, policy, property and item of real value. Then write next to each one how it actually transfers, because they do not all transfer the same way. Some assets are governed by your will. Some are governed by a beneficiary form filed with a bank, an insurer or a plan administrator. Some are governed by how the title is held — a house owned in joint tenancy with right of survivorship goes to the survivor no matter what the will says.
Plans go wrong here far more often than they go wrong at the drafting stage. A carefully written charitable clause is worth nothing if the asset it names passes by a beneficiary form signed in 1994.
2. Decide the size and shape of the charitable share
There are three usual shapes: a fixed dollar amount, a percentage of the estate, or the residue — what is left after debts, expenses, taxes and all other gifts are paid. A fixed amount written twenty years ago can turn out to be either trivial or ruinous by the time anybody reads it. A percentage tracks the estate up and down. The residue is where large charitable gifts most often sit, and it needs the most care, because it absorbs everything the other clauses did not.
3. Pick which asset does the charitable job
Not all assets cost your family the same to give away. A traditional retirement account left to an individual is taxed as income when they draw it; left to a charity, it is not taxed at all. Investments held until death generally receive a basis step-up, which makes them comparatively cheap for family to inherit. If part of the estate is going to charity anyway, which part it is can change the outcome noticeably. Ask your own tax advisor to run it against your numbers.
4. Choose the instrument
A bequest in the will, a beneficiary designation on an account, a charitable remainder trust or a charitable lead trust each behave differently, and only some of them can be undone. The differences are set out in the guide to leaving money to charity in your will. Bring a preference to your attorney rather than a blank page.
5. Decide how specific the purpose should be
Name the recipient by full legal name. A surprising number of organizations have near-identical names, and an ambiguous one is a gift that gets litigated. Then decide whether the gift is unrestricted, aimed at a field, or tied to a named fund. Write the purpose broadly enough that somebody can still carry it out in forty years, and talk to the recipient before you write a restriction — some restrictions are simply unadministrable, and the time to find that out is while you can still be asked what you meant.
6. Get the documents drawn
Your own attorney draws these. A charity cannot, and neither can an article. The working set for most people is short:
- A will.
- A revocable living trust, if you use one, together with the retitling that actually moves assets into it.
- A durable power of attorney for finances.
- A health care power of attorney and an advance directive.
- Current beneficiary designation forms for every retirement account, life insurance policy and annuity.
- A transfer-on-death deed for Kansas real estate, if that is part of the plan.
- A letter of instruction — not legally binding, but it tells your executor where everything is and why you did what you did.
7. Tell the people who will have to act
Ask your executor or trustee whether they will serve, rather than assuming. Tell your family what the plan is; most contested estates are contested because somebody was surprised. And tell the charity. An organization that knows a gift is coming can plan around it and can flag a purpose it will not be able to honor, which is a conversation worth having now rather than in probate.
8. Set a review date
Look at the whole file every few years, and immediately after a marriage, a divorce, a death, a birth, a move to another state, the sale of a business, or a change at the charity you named. Beneficiary forms are the ones that go stale first, because nothing prompts you to look at them.
Property is one asset worth settling early, because not every organization is set up to receive it — which charities accept real estate donations covers what a gift of land or a house actually involves.
Which document controls what
| Document | What it governs | Does your will override it? |
|---|---|---|
| Will | Assets in your sole name with no beneficiary named | It is the will |
| Beneficiary designation form | IRAs, 401(k)s, life insurance, annuities | No. The form on file wins |
| Payable-on-death or transfer-on-death registration | Bank and brokerage accounts | No |
| Transfer-on-death deed | Kansas real estate | No |
| Joint tenancy with right of survivorship | Jointly titled property | No |
| Revocable living trust | Assets retitled into the trust | No. The trust document governs them |
| Letter of instruction | Nothing, legally | Not binding on anyone |
What Kansas changes
Kansas imposes no state estate tax and no state inheritance tax, so the tax side of a Kansas plan is a federal question. Kansas also recognizes transfer-on-death deeds for real estate, which lets a house or a piece of ground pass to a named beneficiary — a charity included — without going through probate. On the federal side, gifts to qualified charities are deductible against the taxable estate without the ceiling that applies to lifetime income tax deductions, and most estates never reach the federal threshold in the first place. Confirm your own position with your tax advisor.
Working through it with the Miami County Community Foundation
Miami County Community Foundation is a 501(c)(3) community foundation established in 2007, based in Paola and serving Miami County, Kansas. Checked against the IRS Exempt Organizations Business Master File in September 2026, it is classified under section 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) — a publicly supported charity, and therefore a 50% limit organization for donor deduction purposes. That is the line an attorney or CPA will ask you for, and it is worth having ready.
Funds at the Foundation come in two shapes, which is the choice that sits behind step five. An endowed fund starts at $10,000, stays permanently invested, and cannot fall below what was put into it; under a 5% spending policy, a $10,000 endowed fund makes about $500 available each year. An expendable fund starts at $1,000, can be spent to zero, and closes when it is empty. The fee is 2% in total — a 1% administrative fee plus a 1% community support fee that pays for the Foundation’s own operations. A new fund takes seven to ten business days to set up. Existing funds are listed on the Foundation’s funds page, and the Ways to Give page groups the giving methods it publishes.
For gifts made now rather than later, there are two routes: the sitewide Donate Now button, which opens a drop-down of funds and takes a card or PayPal, or a check made payable to the Miami County Community Foundation with the fund name in the memo line, mailed to 702 Baptiste Dr, Paola, KS 66071. Most people who reach the Foundation about a planned gift arrive through an attorney or a CPA, so bringing your advisor into the conversation is the normal route, not an imposition.
If the planning is happening because of a recent death, in lieu of flowers wording covers how families direct memorial gifts while the estate is still being settled.
Start the conversation before the drafting
Work steps one to three on paper, then call the Foundation on (913) 404-7287 or email info@micocf.org and ask how a gift would be structured — which fund, which shape, what the money would be for. A conversation with the Foundation costs nothing and will change what you ask your attorney to draft. If you are still working out what you want the gift to stand for rather than how to deliver it, the piece on leaving a legacy is the better starting point.
