The ABE Charitable Gift Fund: For Attorneys by Attorneys

As an attorney, you want to establish a lasting legacy to reflect your years of legal and public service. You also want an easy way to manage your charitable giving, without cumbersome paperwork. The ABE Charitable Gift Fund meets these goals, offering simplicity, convenience, tax advantages and an easy way to build a legacy of giving.

Simplicity

The ABE Charitable Gift Fund offers two types of Charitable Gift Accounts: Donor-Advised and Specific Donee Accounts. You can establish an ABE Charitable Gift Account with an initial gift of at least $5,000 in cash, bonds, mutual fund shares, or publicly-traded securities. Your gift to the ABE Charitable Gift Fund is irrevocable, making you eligible for an immediate federal income tax deduction for cash contributions in an amount up to 50 percent of your adjusted gross income and for an amount up to 30 percent of your adjusted gross income for a fair market value contribution of bonds, mutual fund shares or stocks that you have held for more than one year. Or, download your free copy of "2007 Charitable Gift Services for Financial Professionals."

Convenience

With a Donor-Advised Account, you recommend charitable organizations to support at your convenience, and the ABE handles the paperwork. Donors receive quarterly statements, have the convenience of checking the accounts they created and recommending grants from ABE's website, as well as changing certain options on these accounts.

Tax Advantages

The ABE Charitable Gift Fund offers unsurpassed tax advantages for attorneys, including no capital gains tax on donations of appreciated securities and tax-free fund growth.

How to Build a Legacy of Giving

The ABE Charitable Gift Fund allows you to create a lasting philanthropic legacy without the burden of establishing a private foundation. From tax advantages to naming successors, the fund's many benefits can last throughout your lifetime and beyond.

Eligibility for immediate tax advantages, extended charitable giving: You will be eligible for the immediate tax benefits of a large contribution while establishing the basis for a long-term giving strategy. You recommend grants when you are ready, not when the tax calendar dictates. You can plan your giving over many years and modify your strategy in accordance with the account's investment performance.

Invest to meet your charitable goals: The ABE Charitable Gift Account that you create may accrue investment returns, so additional money may be available for your favorite charities. Northern Trust Corporation is one of the world's best known investment houses.

Involve your family: The ABE's national status allows family members in different cities to benefit local charities from the same account. And you can give relatives independence in recommending grants by formally making them advisors.

Name successors: You determine how the account you create will be advised beyond your lifetime by naming successors. If no successors survive you, you may recommend one or two charitable organizations to receive the balance of the account.