Emily Leslie was a faithful United Methodist her entire life. Her faith was forged and nurtured in her younger years at White Salmon UMC. She raised her family at Pioneer UMC in Walla Walla. Emily earned her teaching certificate, bachelor’s, and master’s in education all from Central Washington University and spent 33 years as teacher, retiring in 1986 from the Walla Walla School District. She spent her last years connected to First UMC Pasco. In 2016, Emily contacted the Foundation about setting up a Charitable Gift Annuity.

Dear Foundation,

I want to give money to my church for a specific project, but I’ve been holding on to it because our current pastor doesn’t share my priorities and won’t spend it the way they should. How can I make sure that my gift gets used for its intended purpose? Do I have to wait until we get a new pastor? Or is it best to put this kind of gift in my will?

This is a tough one. Giving is easier when there’s a common vision. I’m sorry you’re having this experience.

As you plan ahead for stewardship season, we hope you’ll find time to be intentional about celebrating All Saints Day. This is an opportunity to provide pastoral care for families who have lost loved ones, and it’s also a time to lift up and celebrate the ways in which our ministry continues to be enriched by members who have gone on to glory. Done well, it becomes a gentle reminder about the opportunity for bequest giving.

Our friends and colleagues at the Mountain Sky United Methodist Foundation have developed a comprehensive resource for All Saints Day. This resource includes templates for letters to the families of the saints, worship elements, bulletin inserts, and more. You can download it in either PDF or Word:

Doug McKay’s life runs parallel to Wesley UMC. His parents were founding members. When he was a teen, the church met in a schoolhouse. As he started his own family, Wesley UMC grew with them, building its own sanctuary and filling it with children’s laughter.

Dear Foundation,

Our church just received an undesignated bequest. We’re thrilled, but we don’t have a policy in place about what to do with it! It will probably take us a while to decide, and we don’t want to miss out on interest that we could have earned during our discernment process. But if we put it in our endowment, does that prevent us from spending the principal in the future once a decision has been reached?

Congratulations on receiving a bequest-- your ministry obviously had a big influence in the donor’s life. Undesignated funds can be a huge blessing. As you described, they also force your church leadership to do some discernment together. You’re wise to want to understand all your options at the beginning of this process.

Most planned gifts don’t benefit the church until after a beloved member passes away. But as we enter a time of year associated with generosity and giving thanks, you should be aware that there are other types of planned gifts that can benefit your church immediately. These gifts can also have great tax advantages for the donor. If one of your members wants to make a planned gift whose impact they can see during their lifetime, here are three options to consider. 

Harland and Rose kept the money they earned in a household account. As a banker, Rose managed the family finances with precision. Harland, a WWII Navy veteran and carpenter, thrived on the art of the deal. He had a keen eye for fixer-uppers. Any money he earned moonlighting he invested in houses, property, and cars. They made a good pair: the conservative banker and the hardworking risk taker.  

Their son Randy remembers sitting between the two of them in a church pew as a teenager in the mid-1960s…

We all know that planned giving is important for your church’s finances. Aside from regular, gentle reminders, the best way for your church to receive a planned gift is to ask for it. Over the past few months, we’ve shared how to identify top prospects and how to prepare to make an ask. (If you missed either of those articles, take a quick look and come back.) Now it’s time for our final article in this series, which shares our roadmap for the meeting in which you directly ask for a planned gift.

If you’ve ever felt nervous about asking for planned gifts for your church, you’re not alone. But it can make such a big difference to your ministry that it’s worth pushing through the discomfort and doing it anyway. Following a tried-and-true system can make it easier. Once you’ve identified good prospects for planned giving, here are seven things you can do to set yourself up for successful asks.

If your church appreciates the importance of planned giving and is giving its members regular, gentle reminders, you’re already ahead of the curve. But there’s one more thing you can do to greatly increase your church’s chances of receiving a bequest. You can identify those individuals in your church who may be most receptive to planned giving concepts and initiate a one-on-one conversation. This varsity-level technique is incredibly powerful. But what makes a person a good candidate for planned giving?  Excellent research has determined that in most cases…

Once you’ve decided to be more intentional about planned giving at your church, where should you start? The best way to help your church receive more major gifts and bequests is to give your congregation consistent, gentle reminders. You should aim to remind your members at least once per quarter. Here are eight easy ways to do that:

1. Add a footer to your letterhead that says “Please remember the church in your will.”

A planned gift is any gift above and beyond a person’s usual pledge that requires careful thought and planning ahead of time. Most planned gifts come in the form of bequests (gifts made through a person’s will after death) or beneficiary designations. If you’re hesitant to talk about this type of giving at your church, you’re not alone… but you might be missing out on some ministry-changing generosity! Here are five reasons to start talking about planned giving at your church…

Love it or hate it (or just scratch your head at it), the new tax law has changed the way that a lot of us are filing our taxes this spring. The standard deduction has increased dramatically, which means that many people who itemized deductions in the past will no longer have the incentive to do so. If they don’t itemize, they won’t get a charitable deduction for any gifts that they made from a checking or savings account in 2018.

People shouldn’t have to pay taxes on money they give to charity…

“If we were in town and we weren’t sick in bed, we were in church on Sunday morning,” says Betsey Ullom as she remembers her parents, Bill and Maggie Webber. “Between the two of them they were probably on every church committee.” In addition to an active social life, a high-power career, and a multitude of other volunteer roles and interests, the Webbers were an institution at Tigard United Methodist Church.

“My dad liked to invest in things that were permanent,” says Betsey. So when he began to plan for a major gift to the church, “he wanted the money to be used in perpetuity, to be there forever.”