Ways to Give to Baptist Causes

By: Laurie Valentine-COO & Trust Counsel 

Your church, association and the Kentucky Baptist Convention and its agencies and institutions have a wide variety of important ministries that need financial support to launch them into reality or to continue or expand their existing programming. The methods by which you may support these important causes through legacy giving (giving out of your assets, rather than your income) are also wide-ranging.

An outright gift of cash, appreciated securities or real estate is probably the most common, and simplest, way to make gifts during your lifetime.

Other methods of lifetime giving, such as charitable gift annuities and charitable remainder trusts, allow you to provide a future benefit to one or more Baptist causes while retaining an annual income for your lifetime or a term of years.

There are also a variety of methods you can arrange now to benefit the causes of your choice at your death. The most common is a bequest in your Will or Living Trust. Another possibility is to name a Baptist cause as the beneficiary of some portion of your IRA or a life insurance policy no longer needed for family security.

You can designate your gift be used for a specific program or ministry of the benefiting organization, rather than giving the organization the choice of how to use your gift. You may also want to limit the organization to using only the earnings off what you give (this type of arrangement is called an “endowment fund”).

Gifts may be made directly to the benefiting organization or may be given to a third party, such as the Kentucky Baptist Foundation, to manage for the designated beneficiary cause or causes.

For more information, please call us at (502) 489-3533 or toll free in KY at 1-(866) 489-3533

The information in this article is provided as general information and is not intended as legal or tax advice. For advice and assistance in specific cases, you should seek the advice of an attorney or other professional adviser.