Elder Law Report
Elder Law Report
How To Weave Charitable Gifts Into Your Estate Plan This Holiday Season
Big-hearted plans beat vague intentions. We dig into clear, workable ways to support the causes you care about—without neglecting the people you love. From simple will language to more advanced tools, this conversation breaks down how to structure charitable gifts so they’re easy to carry out, tax smart, and aligned with your values.
We start with the building blocks: specific gifts versus percentage bequests, and how beneficiary designations on life insurance, retirement accounts, and bank accounts can direct support straight to a nonprofit while avoiding probate. Then we go deeper on strategy. Charitable lead trusts send income to a charity for a set term before the remainder goes to your family; charitable remainder trusts do the reverse, paying you or loved ones first and gifting the remainder to your chosen organization later. Both can provide meaningful tax advantages when designed with care.
Throughout the conversation, we connect planning to purpose. If your heart is with animal rescue, education, your church, or a local community group, a few precise decisions can produce outsized impact. We share practical examples—like gifting 20 percent of an estate to a humane society—and why end-of-year is a natural time to review documents with your estate attorney and tax advisor. And while the legal tools matter, small daily acts of generosity build the same legacy in real time, reinforcing the story your plan will one day tell.
Ready to align generosity with a plan you trust? Listen now, subscribe for more practical elder law insights, share this episode with someone who’s planning their legacy, and leave a review to tell us which cause you’re supporting this season.
Hi there. I'm Jane Deerwester with McIntyre Elder Law. Thank you for joining us for another Elder Law report. I'm here with my colleague, Jordan McIntyre. Hi, Jordan.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, Jane. How are you?
SPEAKER_00:Good. We are here today. It's November. We're here to talk about charitable giving. This is the month when a lot of us pause to think about what we're grateful for, to focus on gratitude, to maybe give a little bit to those who don't have as much. And it's a time when we can stop and make plans for philanthropic charitable giving. Also in the fourth quarter, this is a very common time when you're planning charitable giving for the coming year for 2026. You may want to sit down with your estate planning attorney or your tax advisors and talk about the benefits of charitable giving. You can actually have some tax benefits for charitable giving, as well as helping out a charity that's near and dear to your heart and near and dear to your family. This is something that we deal with often. Part of your goals are philanthropic and giving to charity. We want to make sure you understand the different ways that you can do that, creating trust or naming a charity as a beneficiary under your will or under your life insurance. So there are a lot of different ways to accomplish that. And Jordan's going to talk about some trust planning as it involves a charitable giving.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. And I will just uh back up Jane and say that at McIntyre Overlaw, we always talk about protecting your assets and your legacy. And Thanksgiving is all about the season of giving. And I will say that the legacy doesn't just extend to your biological children, but it also extends to the community and those who are needy. And if you have the ability and have the assets to leave something behind to others outside of your biological children, you can really leave a lasting legacy in the community. And specifically at McIntyre Elder Law, we can guide you on how to do that. It's very simple within a trust or a will to leave a certain amount with a specific bequest, right? Let's say you want to leave$10,000,$20,000,$30,000 to your church or some charity in the community. We can set up specific bequest in the will or a trust, or you can leave behind a certain percentage of your estate. Let's say you want 20% of your assets going to the um, I don't know, Jane, what's a what's a dog society and uh the local animal society.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the Blue Ridge Humane Society is a good one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You want 20% of your estate going to Blue Ridge Humane Society. We can very easily do that within the residuary distributions and the wills and the trusts. Additionally, I'm going to talk about two specific types of trusts that we can set up that are irrevocable trusts. And one is known as the charitable lead trust, the other is known as the charitable remainder trust. A charitable lead trust is an irrevocable trust where that makes regular payments to a charity for a set period. Um, so so the charity will receive income for a set period of time, and then after that period is over, the remaining assets go to potentially your family or non-charitable beneficiaries. There are tax benefits to doing this. The charitable remain trust is the opposite. It provides income to you during your life or maybe your family during your life. And then when you pass, the charity receives the remainder. Um, other than that, you could potentially have beneficiaries that are trust on your bank accounts, your retirement accounts, um, and always meet with us or a financial advisor to talk about the tax benefits of doing this. And I'll let Jane continue on and close this out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thank you so much, Jordan. I think again, this is a time of year that we all pause and think about what we're grateful for. And again, if you are blessed enough to have the ability for charitable giving, not only can you incorporate that into your estate plan, but I encourage everyone to incorporate it into your daily life. Pay it forward, pay for the person's coffee behind you a Starbucks. You know, these kind of little random acts of kindness uh in these times can go a long way. And if you're really passionate about animal rescue or education or whatever it is, your charitable giving and your ultimate bequest and your will or from your trust, it can make a huge difference for people moving forward and also give you some tax savings and peace of mind and kind of all the warm fuzzies that you know you're doing something to help others. So I hope all of us can embrace this idea of giving at this time of year. Uh, very grateful for our staff here at McIntyre Elder Law and our attorneys. Um, our goal is to help people accomplish their ultimate goals with their estate plan, and charitable giving is definitely a great part of that, a great way to go. So thank you, Jordan, for joining me today. And thanks to all of you who are listening. If you have any questions about charitable giving or state planning in general, please let us know. We have offices in Hendersonville, Shelby, and Charlotte. And we look forward to meeting with you and discussing your goals. Thanks, Jordan.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you.