A Green Legacy for the Hilltowns
Making a planned gift or legacy gift to Hilltown Land Trust is a way to make a lasting difference on the landscape of the Hilltowns. Your gift ensures a healthy future for Hilltown Land Trust and the places we care for and conserve.
Our Green Legacy Circle members are a group of individuals dedicated to the future of conservation in the Hilltowns, who have made a lasting commitment to Hilltown Land Trust through one of the methods below.
If you have already included Hilltown Land Trust in your estate plans, please let us know so that we may thank you and add your name to the Green Legacy Circle membership. Even if you want your gift to remain anonymous, your sharing the confidential details of your gift helps us to plan for the future.
Do you have questions about legacy gifts? Send an email or call Sally Loomis, Executive Director at (413) 628-4485 ext 2.
Types of Legacy Gifts
Bequests
A bequest is made as part of a will or trust. There are different options for giving through a bequest, and if you have any questions about making a provision to benefit Hilltown Land Trust, we would be happy to work with you and your advisers.
If you would like sample language to use in a bequest, you can view or download that on our website.
Retirement account (e.g. IRA or 401(k))
This is one of the easiest ways to make a planned gift. This type of gift just involves contacting your retirement account broker or administrator or signing in to your account online and naming Hilltown Land Trust as a beneficiary of a portion, or all, of your account. Making a gift this way can create tax savings for your heirs, since these retirement accounts are generally subject to both estate and income tax.
Life Insurance
Naming Hilltown Land Trust as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy can provide tax benefits for you or your heirs and can allow you to make a more significant gift than you might otherwise be able to. A gift can be made from an existing or new life insurance policy, and, like a retirement account, is a fairly simple way to make a planned gift.
Real Estate
Gifts of land with conservation value can help further Hilltown Land Trust’s mission to protect and care for ecologically important land. Houses, buildings, and other developed real estate can be donated as trade properties: the sale of the property then provides funding for conservation projects.
Stock
Stock can be left to Hilltown Land Trust in a will or estate plan as a bequest.
Donor Stories
“Having grown up next to woodlands and frog ponds, I knew the value of a life surrounded by trees and wildlife. My adult life had kept me in cities, and I was a total soon-to-happen wreck. So, in 1987, my wife and I moved to Worthington, and I returned to the world I had known as a child.
After moving to the Hilltowns, I became a Board member and volunteer for Hilltown Land Trust. For 17 years with HLT I worked to protect the natural landscape around me.
When I retired from the Board, I wanted to continue my support of this land conservation work, so I designated HLT as a beneficiary of my IRA. Leaving a gift for HLT in my plans means I am helping to build a charitable, earth-supporting legacy on local ground and with local trees for the future. And I find that indescribably satisfactory!”
-Wil Hastings
Tax ID
Many legacy gifts require the nonprofit organization’s Tax ID. Hilltown Land Trust’s is 22-2831145.
