From the gifts of Capitol Hill real estate by Samuel Winograd, to repeated major donations by Edward Rawson, to the $1 million contribution from the Parker family of Chicago, to the most recent $400,000 surprise bequest from the estate of Clifford Terry of Baltimore, these types of contributions have exceeded all other sources of income combined — including membership dues and grants from foundations. The importance of estate and planned giving to CGS simply cannot be overstated.
CGS would most likely not exist today were it were not for many individuals who chose to include our organization in their estate planning — their wills, trusts, annuities, and life insurance policies. Over its entire history, Citizens for Global Solutions has obtained by far the majority of its income from estate gifts and large bequests.
How is it that legacy giving plays such an outsized role in the financial sustenance of CGS? I would submit that the answer lies in the distinction of our unique mission and how it comports with our imagined views of the world beyond our lifetimes.
CGS would most likely not exist today were it not for many individuals who chose to include our organization in their estate planning — their wills, trusts, annuities, and life insurance policies.
We want our lives to have meaning that transcends our time on earth. We hope that humanity will survive long after we are gone. That hope is vested in a belief that civilization itself is imperiled by our own devices, the military industrial complex, nuclear weapons, oceanic and atmospheric pollution, the poverty of billions, the failure of global institutions to prevent war, and not to mention our international mishmash of responses to global pandemics!
As a reader of Mondial, you may share our advocacy of global governance — of a democratic federal republic of the world. Citizens for Global Solutions embodies these aspirations by elucidating, holding, and projecting a long-range vision for the future of the planet — a United Federation of Nations. That vision is unlikely to be realized within the lifetime of any of us, but it is grounded in a specific idea for the future for humanity.
If you want that idea to persist, you can make a profound difference through estate planning. Establishing a carefully designed estate plan produces a certain kind of personal satisfaction. Declaring how your accumulated material wealth will be allocated will help to align your vision with your values and impart a tangible measure of control beyond the horizon of your lifetime. To ensure that it does persist and to cement your legacy, make it a priority to include CGS in your estate plan. It is an easy thing to do.
I chair the CGS Development Committee. For assistance with your estate planning please contact me, Larry David, at [email protected].