Philanthropic Trust Services

For many individuals, families, and businesses, supporting your community is more than just a “nice” to-do, it is an important part of your values and legacy. While you want to give back, you also want to find ways to make sure that your philanthropic trusts and other investments are making an impact. 

At First Western Trust, we work with families who are either considering adding a charitable component to their family wealth plan or need assistance in formulating a successful charitable giving strategy. We also work with nonprofit boards and planned giving directors to create successful plans for developing endowments and planned gifts.

Family Philanthropic Services

For individuals and families, our team can help you formulate a goal or mission statement to guide your charitable enterprise and support you with strategic advice to manage your philanthropic endeavors. In determining the best structure for the charitable entity, we offer valuable assistance in understanding the benefits and issues that come from using private family foundations, donor advised funds and structured gifts.

Our team is also very familiar with helping families and individuals design a:

• Charitable annuity
• Philanthropic trust
• Charitable life estate
• Creative charitable donation that benefits both the donor and the charity

How a Charitable Annuity and Private Charitable Trust Work

A charitable annuity is a planned giving vehicle that creates a contract between a donor and a charity, where you, as the donor, agree to give cash or property to a charity. In exchange, the charity provides you or your beneficiary with a lifetime fixed income stream. The benefit of a charitable annuity comes with the potential for immediate partial tax deductions. Additionally, donors can use many different types of assets, not just cash, as part of their charitable annuity.

For individuals and families interested in setting up a private charitable trust, we can help you design a charitable lead trust or charitable remainder trust.

What is a Charitable Lead or Remainder Trust?

A charitable lead trust can give you, as the donor, an immediate income tax deduction when you make the gift; however, you are still taxed on the value of the income interest that is paid to the charity. You can create this type of philanthropic trust during your lifetime or establish it at your passing by setting it up in your will, with the property ultimately returning to your beneficiaries years later.

Charitable remainder trusts are private charitable trusts that can take two forms, depending on whether your income payments to charity are determined based on your trust’s initial value or on its annual value. In these types of trust, at least 5 percent of the trust’s initial or annual value, depending on how you designed the trust, must be given to charity. There are four types of these private charitable trusts:

• Charitable lead annuity trusts
• Charitable lead unitrusts
• Charitable remainder annuity trusts
• Charitable remainder unitrusts

Each has unique benefits and depending on your personal or family goals, we can help you determine which philanthropic trust is best for you. 

Nonprofit Philanthropic Services

When we partner with nonprofits, our team can work with your nonprofit board and planned giving director to create successful strategies for developing endowments and planned gifts. This includes presentations to boards and donors on the tax benefits of various forms of planned gifts. Our services are without charge and often eliminate the cost barriers that potential donor may have in seeking advice about making charitable gifts.