Many of us spend our whole lives working hard and earning our keep. But even if we feel that we’ve reached success, we often think that there are still so many things that we can do. Even if we’ve achieved so much, we still feel, in some way, incomplete. After much consideration, we often find that at the root of this feeling of incompleteness, we just want to continue making a difference in our community. After working hard on our careers and reaping the rewards of it, we have this strong desire to share our good fortune with those in need.
To ensure that we continue supporting the development of our community, we can make sure that our estate will go to nonprofit organizations. Here’s how we can do it.
Find out What Our Advocacies Are
The first step to sharing our wealth with nonprofit organizations is recognizing first what kind of organizations do we want to support. This means that we must determine first what our advocacies are. In a way, we have to find out what our mission is. This won’t be easy because there are many things that we can support. There’s education, women empowerment, environmental justice, children’s welfare, and many others. Many of us might even want to support them all.
To help us decide, we can turn to researchers who will, in turn, help us determine which issues need the most attention. Through data gathering and even engagement with our fellow community members, we can determine what our communities would really need. For example, environmental degradation might be the biggest issue that needs support the most. Then this could be our main advocacy.
Enlist the Help of an Attorney
The next thing that we need to do to make sure that our estate will be used to support our advocacy, we can turn to the best will attorneys. It’s their job to make sure that, after our death, our estate will go to our beneficiaries.
Working with will attorneys will also help us plan our estate in general. For many of us, we would like to spread out our estate. Some would go to family, of course. Some might go to support our businesses. And, of course, some would go to the nonprofit organizations that we want to support. Will attorneys are there to sort everything out for us.
Determine Where Our Estate Will Go
As part of estate planning with our attorney, we need to determine where will our estate go to support our advocacy. And there are many options. For example, we can identify specific organizations that we would want to grant funding to. After carefully reviewing their programs, impact, and future plans, then we can decide if our estate will go directly to them.
But another great option is sending our estate to foundations. This would be especially helpful for us. It’s because foundations will be the ones that will determine which organizations our estate will go to. They would take up the work of ensuring that the right organization, whose mission aligns with ours, will get the financial support.
Another option is bequeathing our estate to specific individuals who we trust to carry out our cause. With financial support from us, they can set up their own programs, collaborate with existing organizations, or even set up their own.
Determine What Gift Will Go to Nonprofit Organizations
Determining what part of our estate will go to nonprofit organizations is also a part of our work with attorneys. As estates go, they’re not just composed of our savings in our banks. Our assets such as homes, cars, artworks, etc. are part of our estate. Also part of it is the stocks that we own. This is where we can find creative ways to support nonprofit organizations.
For example, we might own land in the heart of the American midwest. Instead of selling that land to the private sector, we can donate this land to an organization that can use the land to build homes for low-income communities. We might also own a mansion and a farm. If none of our family would want to live there, then we can donate the building to a nonprofit that can use this space to, say, open a school. The possibilities are truly endless.
Planning our estate now will help us fulfill that need to make a difference in our communities. Not only are we making future plans about our estate, but we are also helping turn the future into something bright for communities in need.