Perhaps you’ve thought about supporting St. Mark's School with a contribution in your will. If so, thank you!  We understand that updating your will can be daunting, but there are no shortcuts. There’s no substitute for a good up-to-date will to make certain your estate is distributed exactly as you wish.  However, by designating St. Mark's as a beneficiary of certain accounts or assets you own, you can make a legacy gift to support St. Mark's without making changes to your will.

A “beneficiary designation” is one of the simplest ways to make a legacy gift to St. Mark's. It’s usually as easy as filling out a form directing that the account is to be distributed to St. Mark's at the end of your lifetime. And a beneficiary designation can be quite flexible. You can name St. Mark's as the sole beneficiary of your account or as one of several beneficiaries. For example, you can use some of your assets to make a legacy gift to St. Mark's and use the rest to provide for family members or other loved ones.

There are many benefits of making a legacy gift through a beneficiary designation:

  • Flexibility: Your accounts remain under your control should you need them.
  • Easy to arrange:  A beneficiary designation doesn’t require you to wait until you make a change to your will. 
  • Revocable: You can change your beneficiary designation at any time without having to amend or rewrite your will.
  • Tax incentives: Funds passing via beneficiary designation to St. Mark's are not subject to income or estate tax.  This means 100% of your gift can be put to use supporting the important work of St. Mark's.
  • Family-friendly: You can name family or others to receive some of the asset value, with St. Mark's receiving the remaining portion.
  • Support an important cause you care about: Your legacy gift to St. Mark's will help support our mission to educate young people for lives of leadership and service.

Accounts and assets, you could consider designating for St. Mark's include: 

Retirement accounts: These include IRAs and most other “Qualified Retirement Plans” such as 401(k) and 403(b) plans. Your plan administrator can provide you with a beneficiary designation form you can use to designate St. Mark's to receive either a percentage of your retirement plan balance or of a specific dollar amount at the end of your lifetime.

From a tax standpoint, a gift of assets remaining in your IRA or other retirement account is the very best charitable gift. Retirement plan assets that you leave to someone other than your surviving spouse can be subject to very high taxes, sometimes more than 50%. This is because most distributions from an IRA, 401(k), 403(b), or other retirement plan to an individual are subject to both income tax and estate tax.  You completely avoid these taxes when you leave your retirement plan account to St. Mark's through a beneficiary designation.

Life insurance policies: Your insurance company can provide a simple form that will allow you to designate St. Mark's to receive all or a portion of the death benefit from your life insurance policy.

Annuity contracts: Sometimes a commercial annuity contract will have a remaining value at the end of the annuitant’s lifetime. Using forms supplied by the annuity company, you can name St. Mark's to receive all or part of this amount.

Bank account: You can instruct your bank to pay to St. Mark's all or a portion of what remains in your checking or savings account at the end of your lifetime. Your bank can provide you with the appropriate forms.

Investment account: You can instruct your investment company to transfer to St. Mark's some or all of the investments remaining in your account at the end of your lifetime. Your broker or agent can help you with the process for doing this. It may be as simple as adding specific wording after your name on the account.

Thank you for having the foresight to consider a legacy gift.  We are very grateful for your generous support of our work over the years. We would be happy to provide further information and work with you and your advisors. Please call us at 508-786-6128.