Planned Giving

Planned Giving

Benefits of Planned Giving

Planned Giving provides you with the ability to support nonprofits like SPF by arranging for gifts to be made through financial or estate planning. This practice enables you to make charitable gifts now and establishes provisions for gifts that will continue later. This approach provides financial and tax benefits to both you and your heirs.

Our Endowment Fund

The Spastic Paraplegia Foundation benefits from Planned Giving through our endowment fund. This fund was established in 2013 with a gift of $25,000, and through additional and generous contributions over the years to come stands to reach ever-larger amounts. Only the interest income from the fund is used to support Foundation programs, while the principal remains untouched, growing ever larger as new donations are made.

There are several ways to contribute to the Foundation’s endowment fund – bequests, gifts of stock, ownership of property, direct donations, and more. Each of these vehicles can offer substantial tax deductions to you, and each helps to guarantee the future of the Foundation’s work.

Bequests

Bequests are made through a will or a trust and represent the most common type of planned gift. Remembering the Spastic Paraplegia Foundation in your will is an important and personal way of providing hope to children and adults with Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia and Primary Lateral Sclerosis until the happy day when a cure will be announced. Bequests are fully deductible for estate tax purposes.

To make a bequest of cash or other property to the Foundation, your will (or supplemental codicil, if you do not wish to write a new will) should state: “I give and bequeath to the Spastic Paraplegia Foundation, a nonprofit corporation, organized under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and having its office at 16952 Clayborne Drive, O’Fallon, MO 63368-6202 the sum of $____ or ____ percent of the rest, residue, and remainder of my estate to be used for general purposes of the Foundation.”

It is strongly recommended that you seek advice from your personal tax or legal advisor when making a bequest. These professionals can provide important guidance in setting up a bequest that is best suited to your individual tax situation.

Other Planned Gifts

Planned gifts can take several different forms. Funds can be contributed from:

Trusts, such as charitable lead trusts and charitable remainder trusts

Charitable gift annuities

Life insurance policy assets

Retirement plan assets

Endowment funds

An Extraordinary Impact

Please know that your planned gift can make a significant difference in the lives of patients and families fighting the rare upper motor neurological disorders of HSP and PLS, and will aid in funding real life changing research toward a cure.

If you would like more information about presenting a gift to the Foundation’s endowment fund or making a bequest, please contact the Spastic Paraplegia Foundation at 1 877-773-4483.