At the time of the 2013 Dinner of Celebration, what have we to celebrate?
- You have given over $5,000,000 during the past 6 years!
- You have enabled us to give away over $1,000,000 in cash scholarships over the past 6 years!
- You have enabled us to increase our annual cash scholarships for full time students to a minimum of $6,000 a year.
- You have significantly decreased the amount that each of our seminary students has been forced to borrow!
- You have enabled us to build up our endowment for present and future seminary students to over $4,000,000!
- You have enabled us to assist an average of 38 seminary students and their immediate families over the past 6 years.
- You have seen the fruit of your labors with recipients of your gifts graduating from seminary and now serving as pastors of churches all across the Alabama-West Florida conference.
- Checks or Cash: The vast majority of our donors are individuals or families that make gifts by means of checks. An increasing number are using bank drafts designating that a specific sum be sent to our foundation each month. We are also blessed to receive checks from churches, Sunday School classes, United Methodist Women, and United Methodist Men.
- Gifts of Securities: An increasing number of our donors are giving securities. Making gifts of appreciated stock can be more advantageous than giving cash. If an appreciated stock has been held more than one year, an individual donor can deduct the full market value in taxes, regardless of what that donor paid for the security.
- Gift Annuity: Donors who have selected a gift annuity have learned that it is a simple and easy way to make a gift to our scholarship foundation, receive a tax benefit, and provide a lifetime income for the donor.
- Real Estate: Donors have given us parcels of real estate that can be sold and monies deposited within our scholarship foundation.
- Insurance: Donors have given life insurance policies to us, simply naming our foundation as the beneficiary.
- Codicil to Will: A codicil is a legal document that makes minor changes to a last will, but leaves all of the other provisions untouched. Some of our donors use the provision of a codicil to include our scholarship foundation in their financial planning.
- Will: Some of our donors preparing their first wills, or who are making major changes in their wills, have chosen to include our scholarship foundation.
- Automobiles: Several of our seminary students have benefited from the gift of used automobiles.