Your Legacy. Their Future: Planning Today for Petaluma Students

At the Petaluma Educational Foundation, we believe every student deserves opportunities to learn, grow, and thrive. Including PEF in your giving plans is one way to support those opportunities for years to come.

October is Estate Planning Awareness Month. This month, we’re grateful to two members of our PEF community for sharing their expertise. Kimberly Strickland of Strickland Law Group is a current PEF board member and serves on our executive board. Brian Breen of Breen Wealth Management is a former PEF board member. Both have contributed their time and leadership to supporting local education through PEF. Here, Kimberly and Brian share how estate planning and charitable giving can support your loved ones and the causes you care about.

Estate Planning, Values, and Charitable Giving

By Kimberly Strickland, Strickland Law Group
https://www.stricklandlawyers.com

Estate planning is more than deciding who will receive your assets. It is an opportunity to reflect on the values, people, and causes that have shaped your life and to carry those priorities forward. A thoughtful plan can help provide for loved ones, while also expressing what matters most to you: education, faith, community, stewardship, opportunity, or a commitment to helping others.

Charitable giving can be an important part of that conversation. Giving during your lifetime may allow you to see the impact of your generosity, support organizations that are meaningful to you, and reduce the assets remaining in your taxable estate. Depending on your circumstances and the type of gift, lifetime and estate gifts to qualifying charities may also help reduce potential estate tax exposure, leaving more funds available to support your loved ones and the causes you care about. For those who value education and the future of our local community, the Petaluma Educational Foundation ("PEF") may be one meaningful organization to include in a charitable giving plan. By integrating family goals, personal values, and charitable intentions into an estate plan, you can create a lasting legacy that provides clarity for those you love and meaningful support for the causes you care about.

Do not let the opportunity to plan for the assets you worked hard to build pass you by. Creating and maintaining an estate plan is an important part of completing your life goals and supporting the people and causes you care about, while creating a lasting legacy for the future.

A Smarter Way to Give Before Year-End

By Brian Breen, Breen Wealth Management
https://breenwealth.com

As the year begins to wind down, many retirees start thinking about year-end tax planning, charitable giving, and Required Minimum Distributions. If you are already giving to charity, there may be a smarter way to make those gifts.

One strategy many retirees overlook is a Qualified Charitable Distribution, or QCD. If you are age 70½ or older, a QCD allows you to make a gift directly from your IRA to an eligible charity.

Why does that matter? A properly completed QCD is generally excluded from your taxable income and, if you are required to take minimum distributions from your IRA, it can also count toward your Required Minimum Distribution, or RMD.

Here is the part many people miss. With today’s higher standard deduction, many retirees no longer itemize deductions, which means writing a charitable check may provide little or no additional tax benefit. A QCD works differently. Rather than taking a charitable deduction, the distribution from your IRA may be excluded from your taxable income altogether.

So, if you were already planning to give $1,000, $5,000, or $10,000 to charity, the question may simply be: Should that gift come from your checking account or your IRA?

Organizations such as the Petaluma Educational Foundation may be part of that conversation. A QCD may provide a tax-efficient way to support PEF while coordinating your charitable giving with your retirement and estate planning.

Timing matters. QCDs must be completed by year-end to count for that tax year, so now is a good time to determine whether one makes sense for you.

Sometimes good financial planning is not about doing more. It is about doing what you were already planning to do more thoughtfully.

Help Support the Next Generation

Our community’s generosity helps PEF support students and teachers in Petaluma schools. A gift through your estate plans can continue that support for future generations.

As you review your plans, we hope you’ll consider including PEF. Talk with your advisor about what works for you and your family, and learn more about the ways you can help put education first.

Thank you for being part of a community that cares about our students and their future.

Learn More About Planned Giving

The Petaluma Educational Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We encourage you to consult your financial, tax, or legal advisor regarding your individual circumstances.