A bequest in your will may be your best fit if you want to leave a legacy for North Dakota wish kids, but also want the flexibility to change your will in the event that life circumstances change. 

There are a few ways to leave a bequest in your will: 

• Specific bequest: You designate a dollar amount or a specific asset (stocks, life insurance, and real property) from your estate. 
• Percentage bequest: You give a specific percentage of your estate. 
• Residual bequest: You give a specific residue—what is left after the other terms of your will have been satisfied—be paid to Make-A-Wish Foundation of North Dakota. 

Including a bequest to us is easy; simply have your attorney include this sentence in your will: 

I give the sum of $___ or ___% to the   Make-A-Wish Foundation® of North Dakota, 4143 26th Avenue South Suite 104, Fargo, ND 58104 (tax id: 45-0393770)   to be used or disposed of as the Board of Directors deems appropriate in its sole discretion. 

Securities and mutual funds that have increased in value and been held for more than one year are popular assets to use when making a gift to Make-A-Wish. Making a gift of securities or mutual funds offers you the chance to support our work while realizing important benefits for yourself. 

When you donate appreciated securities or mutual funds in support of our mission, you can reduce or even eliminate federal capital gains taxes on the transfer. You may also be entitled to a federal income tax charitable deduction based on the fair market value of the securities at the time of the transfer. 

You can easily include Make-A-Wish North Dakota as a beneficiary by requesting a change-of-beneficiary form from your policy administrator or download the form from your provider's website. Make your desired changes and return the form to establish your gift. We can be listed as a beneficiary of your IRAs and retirement plans, life insurance policy, commercial annuity or donor advised fund. 

If you’re at least 59½ years old, you can take a distribution and then make a gift from your IRA without penalty. If you itemize your deductions, you can take a charitable deduction for the amount of your gift.

For those 72 years old or older, you give any amount up to $100,000 per year from your IRA directly to a qualified charity. The donation will not be included in your taxable income and no income tax deductions will apply. This popular gift option is commonly called the IRA charitable rollover, but you may also see it referred to as a qualified charitable distribution, or QCD for short. 

Qualified charitable transfers must come only from IRA’s (not 401(k), 403(b), SEP-IRA or Simple IRA plans). However, for some donors it may be possible to establish a new IRA and then roll over assets from another plan to the new IRA. This IRA may then be used to make qualified charitable gifts. 

If you have built a sizable estate and are looking for ways to receive reliable payments, consider a charitable remainder trust. This type of trust provides you or other named individuals income each year for life or a period not exceeding 20 years from assets you give to the trust you create. At the end of the trust term, the balance in the trust goes to Make-A-Wish.

These types of gifts may offer you tax benefits and the option for income. There are two ways to receive payments and each has its own benefits:

The annuity trust pays you, each year, the same dollar amount you choose at the start. Your payments stay the same, regardless of fluctuations in trust investments.

The unitrust pays you, each year, a variable amount based on a fixed percentage of the fair market value of the trust assets. The amount of your payments is redetermined annually. If the value of the trust increases, so do your payments. If the value decreases, however, so will your payments.

A Donor Advised Fund (DAF), which is like a charitable savings account, gives you the flexibility to recommend how much and how often money is granted to Make-A-Wish North Dakota. Once you start contributing to the account, the beneficiary can begin to utilize those funds to help support their needs; however, as the DAF account holder, you could retain discretion on how the funds are utilized. You can recommend a grant or recurring grants now to make an immediate impact or use your fund as a tool for future charitable gifts.