Exciting News!

Beginning in 2009

Individuals 70-1/2 or older may move up to $100,000 a year from their IRAs directly to charities, such as AHCC, without having to pay income taxes on the transfers. This news may have a familiar ring because it is an extension of the IRA Rollover program from the last two years. The new legislation extending the program was signed into law in October 2008 and an AHCC Legacy Fellowship member's question resulted in our receiving this information. For some members of AHCC, this may be a way to fulfill your entire annual Canvass pledge in one transfer. For more information, contact your financial advisor or you may also wish to go to the United Church of Christ Financial Ministries website at www.ucc.org/giving and then clicking on "IRA Charitable Rollover."

- Jo Champlin Casey,

Immediate Past Chair,
AHCC Planned Giving Committee

(This information is not intended as legal or tax advice.)

Q: Can you name the largest AHCC contributor?
Contributions from all of us support AHCC each year through our pledges to the Every Member Canvass, volunteering for Spirit Hill, on committees, work days, and mission trips, in Stephen Ministry, choir, the Thrift Shop as well as many, many more activities, and through other gifts.

Our support makes it possible for AHCC to offer wonderful worship services, music, Christian education and numerous opportunities for us to be of service within these walls, our community and in the world.

But what if we weren't here? Will we join hundreds of members from throughout AHCC's history who have left a legacy of funds, in addition to our legacy of service? Will we be as generous and faithful as our forbearers so that years from now, our successors will be supported as we have been?

Over the life of our church, members have provided for AHCC in their estate plans, through their wills and trusts and outright gifts. After providing for their families, they have made generous provisions for their church family by leaving a legacy in their wills. Distributions from estates and trusts ranging from several thousand dollars to several hundred thousand have contributed to AHCC's vital endowment.
Income from the endowment has sustained AHCC through difficult economic times and better ones. The endowment has provided a safety net in bad times and has provided "venture capital" for spiritual matters in better ones. Carefully managed by our Investment Committee, those gifts through bequests and trusts have grown to keep pace with inflation.

Today, income from the endowment provides 20% of the operating budget, making the endowment the largest single contributor each year. In effect, all of those members who left a legacy to the endowment are extending our reach today.

Won't you consider joining them by making a provision in your will for AHCC? Will you call Paul Grimmeisen, the new chair of the Planned Giving Committee to prayerfully and confidentially learn more about leaving a legacy or go to the new Planned Giving Page (www.ahcc.org/Planned_Giving.htm) on the AHCC website? We hope you will join us in this way of sustaining the future of the church we love today.

Yours in faith,

Jo Champlin Casey

Immediate Past Chair, Planned Giving Committee

A: The AHCC endowment is the largest individual contributor, contributing about 20% of the annual budget each year and supporting some non-operating activities as well!