Mainstream charities just weren't dealing with women's issues. To me, women's funding seemed like the smartest way to change society. You can create incredible change by strengthening the voice and power of women and girls." Helen LaKelly Hunt, donor

Important: Please check with your local women's foundation to see which types of gifts and assets it accepts and encourages. Policies vary by foundation.

How to give to a women's foundation

Present Outright Gift: Most clients enjoy "giving while living." Your client can make a current gift of any variety of assets to a women's foundation.

Bequest by will or by living trust: Help your client to create a legacy for women and girls. Ask your local women's foundation for precise language for your client to include in her will or trust.

Designation of retirement assets: Retirement assets (excluding the Roth IRA) are subject to income tax after your client dies. By designating a women's foundation as beneficiary of her retirement assets, your client and her heirs could avoid exposing the assets to both income taxation and estate taxation.

Charitable lead trust: A client dedicated to lifetime giving could set up a charitable lead trust that pays an annual amount to the women's foundation. When the trust terminates, its assets revert to your client or her heirs. Lead trusts are especially advantageous in low-interest-rate environments and can significantly reduce taxable estates.

Charitable remainder trust: This is an ideal solution for a client who wants to turn appreciated property into an annual income for her retirement or for a relative. The trust pays an annual amount to your client. When the trust terminates, it assets remain with the women's foundation.

Charitable gift annuity: Now offered by many women's foundations around the country, this simple option allows women to contribute smaller amounts to the Foundation and receive an income for life.

Life estate: Your client may gift her residence to a Women's Foundation, in exchange for the right to occupy the residence until she dies. This solution can have income tax and estate tax advantages.

Which assets to give

Are your clients giving cash to charities every year? Consider a more leveraged and tax-wise approach:

Appreciated, publicly-traded securities: It is very easy to complete a gift of appreciated securities to a women's foundation. Your client should receive both a capital gains tax exemption and an income tax deduction.

Real estate: Perhaps your client is looking to sell her residence or another property. A gift of real estate to a women's foundation makes the most financial sense if the property is highly appreciated, and/or if your client is "cash-poor" but wants to provide substantial support to her favorite causes. She may contribute the property in whole or in part.

Life insurance: If your client no longer needs her life insurance policy, she may gift it to a women's foundation. The foundation may keep the policy until it matures, or may immediately exchange the policy for its cash surrender value. By giving the policy to the foundation, your client should avoid paying ordinary income taxes due if she were to cash out the policy herself; she also successfully removes it from her estate. Alternatively, your client could keep her life insurance policy but make the Women's Foundation the beneficiary.

Stock options, tangible personal property, and privately traded securities. Your local women's foundation may be able to accept these more complex gifts. For guidance on planning these types of gifts, see www.pgdc.org.

Scenario: Your client is preparing her will or living trust. She wants to leave money to groups statewide that support girls in science - but has no way of knowing which organizations will still be around when she dies.

Solution: You introduce your client to the women's foundation serving your region. As a permanent institution, the women's foundation will be around to honor your client's philanthropic wishes after she passes on. The fund will redistribute her donation to effective, statewide organizations that support "girls in science" at that time. After speaking to a foundation representative, your client learns that her legacy choices include leaving a general support bequest to the foundation, establishing a donor-advised fund, or starting a substantial endowment fund just for girls in science. The fund will be able to draw from the endowment to continue awarding grants to new, or ongoing, innovative "girls in science" programs.

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