Gifts

• Planned Gifts
• Gifts in Kind
• Deed of Gift Form

Planned Giving is the process of making a charitable gift for deferred use which requires the assistance of a professional USM staff person or the donor's advisors to complete. Planned gifts are carefully considered by a donor in light of estate and financial plans. Common types of planned gifts include wills and bequests, life insurance, charitable gift annuities, charitable remainder trusts, life estates, and revocable trusts.

Several types of planned gifts, known as "life income gifts," allow you to make an important gift now while providing life income for yourself or someone else. Some examples of "life income gifts" are gift annuities, annuity trusts and unitrusts.

The USM Foundation at 601.266.5602 or 1.888.GIVE.USM has a 'planned giving' expert who can provide details on these and other types of planned gifts.

What follows are brief descriptions of several types of planned gifts:

Charitable Gift Annuity: Through the use of an annuity contract, you transfer assets to USM and USM agrees to make periodic, fixed payments to you for the rest of your life. There are appealing tax benefits for this type of gift that can be explained thoroughly by The USM Foundation.

Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust: This also allows you to make a gift immediately with guaranteed income to follow. It differs from the Charitable Gift Annuity in several ways, however.

For example, while the Charitable Gift Annuity makes payments to you from our organization's resources, an Annuity Trust makes payments to you from the Trust, tapping the principle if necessary. Payments from an Annuity Trust are not determined by the age of the recipient, but are instead determined by you and the USM Foundation.

Charitable Remainder Unitrust: This is similar to an Annuity Trust, but is different in the way that income is distributed to beneficiaries. An Annuity Trust pays a fixed percentage of the value of the trust on the date that the trust is created, and this amount never varies. A Unitrust is revalued every year, and the fixed percentage paid out is based upon that annual revaluation.

Charitable Lead Trust: If you have a large estate, this technique helps you avoid some federal estate and gift taxes while leaving a substantial inheritance to children or grandchildren. Plus, it allows you to provide contributions to USM immediately.

You would first create a trust containing real estate, securities, business interests, etc. The trustee can be you, a bank, or a combination. The trust then pays USM an income for a fixed term of years. It can pay a fixed income or a percentage income. After a predetermined number of years, the trust returns to the contributor or a beneficiary such as a child or grandchild. The assets in the trust often appreciate in value, and they are transferred to the succeeding generation with lower gift or estate tax.

Planned Gifts are a popular and attractive method of giving for universities around the country, including USM. For more information, please contact The USM Foundation, 601.266.5602 or contact the University Libraries director at 601.266.4242.

No library budget in the world is large enough to allow for the collection of every item the library desires. Because of this fact, USM Libraries welcomes gifts of original materials, books, personal libraries, reports, maps, and other printed items that fall within the scope of our collecting activities. For original materials such as illustrations, manuscripts, historical papers, etc., please contact our director at 601.266.4242.

Individuals who are considering giving items to USM Libraries may wish to know about the tax status of their gift and may wish to have their gift appraised. Because the Internal Revenue Service regards us as an interested party, the library is itself unable to provide appraisals. However, we are able to provide names of appraisers. The University does not receive gifts of books with an actual value unless the gift is appraised.

You will find more detailed information about providing "in kind" gifts to USM Libraries on the Gift Policy page or on our Gifts in Kind Form."

Books and other library material given to USM Libraries become the property of the libraries, and we cannot guarantee that all gifts of books will be added to the collection. If this is a concern for you, please contact us to determine the utility of a proposed gift.