Westmont Magazine Leave a Legacy
This message and image will soon be appearing in Santa Barbara and throughout Southern California. It is already a familiar logo in other parts of the United States and Canada. Leave a Legacy was created and launched in Central Ohio in 1996 as a community-based effort to encourage people to leave a portion of their earthly goods to the charities they believe in. Westmont has benefited from legacy gifts over the years, and legacy gifts will continue to help secure the future of Westmont.
When Does Your Legacy Begin?
At birth, each of us receives a legacy handed down from the past. We enter this world with legacies from our families, our churches, our schools, and our communities. It is a good exercise to count these blessings as we begin a new year, and, soon, a new millennium.
Stewardship of Your Legacy
During our lifetimes, we nurture our legacy gifts. We call this stewardship. With proper care we end our lives with a legacy to leave to others. The common philosophy says, “You can’t take it with you.” However, we can leave it to the next generation—through gifts to family, church, schools and other organizations that we believe in. Stewardship means making some very important decisions about your resources now.
Planning Your Legacy
Good intentions become good deeds through good planning. Having a will is the first and most important step in creating your plan. A qualified estate planning attorney can help you walk through the process of putting your desires into a form that can carry out your wishes in the future. Springtime is a good time to make a will or living trust or to update an existing one.
Your Legacy and Westmont
We would like to offer at least four ways to help you as you plan your legacy. Let us know if we can:
- Mail you a copy of A Guide to Planning Your Will. This 20 page booklet is designed to help you prepare for meeting with your attorney.
- Send you sample wording for making various types of bequests to Westmont. You can review these ideas with your attorney.
- Send you Vantage Point, our planned giving newsletter. This periodic publication will help keep you informed about gift plans that can benefit you, your family, and Westmont.
- Talk with you about planned gift opportunities that provide tax benefits and/or additional income during your lifetime.
Each Legacy Gift Makes a Difference
We believe that God looks at the heart of the giver, not the size of the gift. In like manner, Westmont is grateful for each gift it receives. Recent legacy gifts to the college range from $1,000 to over $100,000. And they came from some wonderful friends: Mary Ellen Emery, Morris Ferguson, Dorothy Le Conte, Kathryn Limburg, Margaret Pettigrew, Prosper and Mabel Smith, and John and Lena Tozier. Through their gifts, these people have left a legacy for the next generation. Mildred Adams also left a legacy gift to Westmont, and you can read her story on the opposite page.
We are committed to serving the Westmont family, so if we can help you plan your legacy, please contact us at our toll free number (800) 998-5652. Press “1” to reach the planned giving office.