Join IJ’s New Four Pillars Society

December 2006

Join IJ’s New Four Pillars Society

By Melanie Tacoma

A variety of gifts qualify you for membership in the Four Pillars Society. If you are interested in leaving a legacy of liberty through your support of IJ, speak with your attorney or financial planner about making a gift in any of the following ways:

• Naming IJ as a beneficiary in your will, living trust, retirement plan or life insurance policy.

• Creating a charitable lead trust or charitable remainder trust for IJ.

• Establishing a charitable gift annuity for IJ.

The Founding Fathers left us many legacies. The most important of these, of course, was to recognize and enshrine in the Constitution the rights and principles that ensure our freedom today. This is the legacy the Institute for Justice fights every day to defend.

But the Founders also left personal legacies for future generations. Thomas Jefferson famously founded the University of Virginia, which educates nearly 20,000 students a year. In 1790, Benjamin Franklin left 1,000 pounds sterling—about $4,400 at the time and about $100,000 in today’s money—in a trust to provide young, married apprentices with funds as they got on their feet, noting that similar loans he received as a young printer enabled him to establish himself. As stipulated in Franklin’s will, the trust accumulated interest for 200 years. In 1990, it was worth almost $5 million and ultimately was used to found a technology school. Franklin’s small gift has already benefited thousands of people and will help thousands more in the years to come.

What is your legacy?

For many, it is their family or the good work they do through their job or in their community. For 15 years, the Institute for Justice has worked to leave a legacy by advancing individual liberty through the courts of law and the court of public opinion nationwide. Though we have achieved great success in each of our four pillars—our defense of private property, free speech, school choice and economic liberty—we are also aware of the constant threat to freedom, both now and in the future, posed by overreaching government.

To recognize friends and supporters who have made a commitment to ensuring that the Institute for Justice has the resources to continue fighting for liberty as long as it is challenged, IJ established the Four Pillars Society.

Members of the Four Pillars Society have chosen to leave a legacy of liberty by including IJ in their estate plans. This type of gift, called a planned gift, is relatively easy to do. And it helps provide us with the financial support we need to achieve long-term goals and implement larger scale programs than the demands of a year-to-year budget allow.

A gift to the Institute for Justice through your estate will help preserve the freedoms you value for generations to come, and it will unite you with others in the Four Pillars Society who want their legacies to reflect their commitment to the Founders’ vision of a free society. Members will also receive a small Four Pillars Society gift, special updates and invitations to Four Pillar Society events.

If you would like more information, or would like us to know you have already remembered IJ in your financial planning, please contact me at [email protected] or (703) 682-9320, ext 230. I would be happy to help you explore what kind of gift might be right for you.

Melanie Tacoma is the coordinator of IJ’s Four Pillars Society.