Legacy Funds
Whether you’ve always given to your favorite causes or you’ve always wanted to, supporting their work after your lifetime is as easy as filling out a simple form to establish your free, personalized Legacy Fund.
Chris Ann Bachtel
Continue Your Legacy of Generosity
Create your charitable legacy by establishing a no-cost Legacy Fund named after you or your family, and ensure support for causes you love after your lifetime. Here’s how it works.
Establish
Create your Legacy Fund by completing a simple form — at no cost — to document your charitable intentions and philanthropic goals.
We’ll work with you and your professional advisors to explore giving strategies that fit your plans. Some options can provide lifetime income to you or your loved ones, while others allow you to maximize your charitable impact or reduce the tax burden on your estate.
Realize
Your Legacy Fund is activated after your lifetime, and we carry out your wishes exactly as you’ve outlined.
You can update your Legacy Fund at any time during your lifetime — at no charge — ensuring it continues to reflect your evolving interests, values, and priorities when it is realized.
Impact
Put your legacy into action through lasting support for the causes you care about most.
Whether you choose to support nonprofits, establish a scholarship, or create an endowed fund, your Legacy Fund will grow through professional investment and thoughtful stewardship. You may also name successor advisors to pass on your philanthropic values. Our team will ensure your intentions are honored and your impact endures for generations to come.
Opening a Legacy Fund offers you rich benefits, during and beyond your lifetime:
✅ Create a lasting legacy: Your fund serves as a personal endowment, reflecting your values and benefiting future generations.
✅ Sustain nonprofits: Provide reliable support to causes that matter, helping them continue their important work.
✅ Ensure your intent is honored: Our team ensures your wishes are carried out, even if named nonprofits no longer exist.
✅ Involve family: Name your loved ones as successor advisors to your Legacy Fund, extending your values to future generations.
✅ Easily adjust plans: Modify your fund agreement without updating your will or trust, keeping your fund aligned with evolving interests.
✅ Giving options: Contribute many types of planned gifts, such as bequests, Charitable Gift Annuities, life insurance, and retirement plan donations.
✅ Double your impact: Re-invest support fees back into the Sacramento region, rather than shareholder pockets.
✅ Build community now: Connect with like-minded philanthropists and nonprofit leaders at exclusive events.
Partner with a local team dedicated to carrying out your philanthropic wishes. With over 40 years of experience as the capital region’s trusted philanthropic resource, we’re here to help you shape your legacy.
“My Legacy Fund is like a touchstone — something that grounds me and reminds me I have something in place to benefit this community.”
Caroline godkin, Legacy FUndholder
Create Your Fund
Submit the form below to begin the process of opening your Legacy Fund. Our team will follow-up with next steps.
Ready to learn more? We’re happy to work with your and your advisors to tailor a Legacy Fund that suits your wishes. Schedule a meeting to get started and contact us at any time with questions.
Donors who create Legacy Funds leave something lasting behind that will benefit future generations. There are many benefits to partnering with the Sacramento Region Community Foundation for your planned giving. Among them:
Stewarding your intent into the future: You may name contingent charitable beneficiaries in the event the organization you name ceases to exist, or ask our team to choose a similar organization in the same community. Either way, your intent will be stewarded by the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, informed by our expertise, into the future.
Ensured legacy: You may name successor advisors for your fund and you can also define how your fund will be used after you are no longer an advisor – allowing your charitable fund to be a lasting legacy.
Pass on cherished values: You may name relatives (or others) to continue giving ongoing grant advice after your lifetime. In addition to providing needed support to causes you love, you can offer family members the opportunity to experience the joy of giving, ensuring that your philanthropic values extend into future generations.
Simple and cost-free: When your will or trust point to your charitable fund at the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, you may alter your charitable objectives as your interests evolve by simply modifying your fund agreement. Your attorney need not amend your will or trust. Working with our team, you can rest easy knowing that it’s simple to make sure your fund keeps pace with your passions.
There is no cost to establish a Legacy Fund at the Sacramento Region Community Foundation. We work with you and your financial advisors, if you wish, to facilitate many types of planned gifts to activate your Legacy Fund after your passing, benefiting from an estate tax deduction and ensuring your impact endures. Common planned giving options include:
- Bequests by will or living trust
- Charitable Gift Annuities
- Charitable Remainder Trusts
- Charitable Lead Trusts
- Life Insurance Policies
- Retirement assets, including IRAs and 401(k)s
Once it is activated, we invest your Legacy Fund’s assets according to the instructions you leave in your fund agreement. See Investment Portfolios.
No fee is assessed on your Legacy Fund until it is activated. At that point, we assess a competitive support fee to offset the costs of fund administration. These support fees are also reinvested in the Sacramento region through our grantmaking and programs — attending to critical regional issues, improving local lives, and multiplying the impact of your giving. Our support fees vary based on fund type and, in some cases, on the size of the fund. See our fee schedule.
Yes, our team is available to research nonprofit organizations working in the areas of interest to you. We can provide a list of organizations and even connect you to help build relationships. Providing concierge support to our fundholders is one of our most significant value-adds, and it is a key reason why donors choose community foundations like the Sacramento Region Community Foundation above other charitable sponsors.
Let’s Get Started
Your philanthropy is personal. The Sacramento Region Community Foundation staff is your support team — here to help you give with confidence, now or after your lifetime.
