Planned Giving

Since its founding in 1970, the Hancock Historical Museum has captured the rich heritage of our community. A variety of local programs, constantly changing displays, lectures, and traveling exhibits reach various audiences, particularly school children. Our Museum is now recognized statewide for its excellence.

The Museum serves as an unique link between today and our community’s treasured past. It must be sustained for future generations, and it takes resources to accomplish this goal.

The Hancock Historical Museum Foundation has an endowment fund dedicated to perpetuating the Museum’s operations and programming. Please share in this preservation of local history by contributing to the current Museum campaign.

A variety of giving methods offer ways of making that “perfect and lasting” gift.  Here are a few that you might consider:

OUTRIGHT GIFT:

You can make a direct gift of cash, stocks, mutual funds, real estate, life insurance policies or other assets to the Museum Foundation and receive the tax advantages that go along with such charitable gifts. These gifts would immediately benefit the Museum.

BEQUEST THROUGH YOUR WILL OR TRUST:

You can designate a portion of your estate to be gifted to the Museum Foundation upon your death through your Will or Trust Agreement. This gift could be a dollar amount bequest or a percent of your total estate. You would be able to continue to use the funds during your lifetime with the comfort of knowing that your charitable intentions would be carried out at the time that you pass away.

CHARITABLE LEAD TRUST:

This type of trust benefits the charitable organization immediately upon making the gift, while the remainder of the gift, after a specified number of years, then passes back to you or to your loved ones. This type of gift can result in substantial reduction of gift and/or estate taxes.

 BEQUEST OF AN IRA OR RETIREMENT PLAN:

Perhaps the best single asset to gift is to name a charitable organization as the beneficiary of part or all of your IRA or other type of retirement plan.

Your heirs who receive the IRA or retirement plan benefits at your death will be taxed on such transfer, but with a bequest of such an asset to the Museum Foundation, the full value of the gift will be received by the charitable organization and no heir would have to pay the taxes associated with the asset.

Everyone benefits: you, your heirs, and the Museum Foundation as a beneficiary of your retirement asset.

BEQUEST OF LIFE INSURANCE:

This is an easy asset to gift to the Museum Foundation and one that is often overlooked. Most of us do not consider life insurance an asset that will be used by the family as we get older, and yet it provides a great vehicle to pass to a charitable organization. The easy act of changing the beneficiary with the live insurance company is all it takes.

GIFT ANNUITY & CHARITABLE REMAINDER TRUST:

A gift of cash, investments or real estate can be made to the Museum Foundation now and you can receive a flow of income for your lifetime with the knowledge that upon your death the proceeds from the gift would be then available to the charitable organization.

The rate of income received from these type of gifts is often much better than one can receive through a financial institution on one’s investments.

For individuals who would like to increase their income, this is a great alternative. You also receive a nice charitable tax deduction with a gift annuity or a charitable remainder trust.