Gifts to the Foundation help fund Lutheran outreach, youth ministry, eldercare, counseling, higher education, and adoption/foster care services throughout the state.

We explain how to get your planning "ducks in a row" for:

• Income for your retirement years
• Avoiding costly and time-consuming probate
• Professional management of your assets - if you so choose
• Favorable capital gains tax treatments
• Eliminating or minimizing estate taxes
• Unforeseen disability/incapacity of you or your spouse
• Turning low income, highly appreciated land or securities into a reliable, steady cash flow

Planned gifts take the form of bequests in wills, gifts through revocable living/management trusts, and/or charitable life income agreements (for the lifetime benefit of the clients/donors). At the client's/donor's death - after appropriate distributions to heirs - the remaining gifts pass directly to the charities or may establish endowments for the benefits of these ministries.

A Living Trust (also called a management trust) is a revocable legal document that ­ like a will ­ specifies who is to handle your affairs if you are incapacitated or after you die, and who is to receive your assets. It offers privacy, asset management and possible estate tax savings unavailable with a standard will. And, whereas a will cannot take effect until death, protective provisions of a living trust can take effect upon incapacity to assure that the wishes of the individual are carried out.

Life Income Agreements enable a donor to receive a steady income stream for life or a set number of years from appreciated assets that may have been producing little or no income for the donor. These irrevocable agreements offer favorable tax treatments to the donor. Lutheran Foundation of the Southwest focuses on four types:

• Charitable Remainder Unitrusts (CRUT)
• Charitable Remainder Annuity Trusts (CRAT)
• Charitable Gift Annuities (CGA)
• Charitable Lead Trusts (CLT)