Joyously Giving (Gift of Retirement Assets)
As undergraduates, Lane and Angela both received much-needed scholarship assistance. Later on, they were blessed with tuition remission benefits from their respective employers so that they each could attend graduate school. "Thoughtful people made sacrifices so that we could pursue our education, and that encourages us to want to do the same for future students," Angela said. Their lifelong goal is to give back the amount that they were given through scholarships and tuition remission-and hopefully even more than that.
"We know that even small gifts matter, and over time, small gifts turn into big gifts!" Angela exclaimed. "That's why we didn't hesitate to designate Baylor University as the beneficiary for an IRA." Studies show that retirement funds are one of the most cost-effective charitable gifts. And as young as Lane and Angela are now, they will be able to watch their fund grow little by little and know that someday it will make a sizeable gift to the University that means so much to their family.
Lane and Angela chose to designate their planned gift to the new Endowed Scholarship Fund Honoring Baylor Staff. "Even though the fund has not yet reached capacity to begin granting scholarships, we stepped out in faith that it will be fully funded in the next few years," Angela said. "Then, by the time our planned gift is received, the scholarship will have had many years of helping students just like us."
Receiving recognition for their giving is not important to Lane and Angela, but developing a legacy of giving in their children is. "We want to instill in them an understanding that giving is not just an obligation; it is a joyous privilege," Angela said. Lane and Angela may never have the capacity to make a mega gift, but they know that when they're gone, their children and grandchildren will know that they used what they had and did what they could to make a difference.
