Bequests

A couple of times a month we receive notification from the trustee of an estate that one of our donors has passed away and the food bank is named in their will. Very often this is the first indication we have the donor had named us as a beneficiary. Whenever we receive one of these notifications, I always try to find out as much as possible about the individual who so kindly considered the food bank as one of the recipients of their wonderful generosity. Unfortunately, it is most often the case that we know very little about these individuals, except that they had been donors to the food bank in the past. While the size and frequency of their historical donations to the food bank vary, there is very seldom a correlation to their past donations and the size of their bequest.

At first it bothered me there was not the opportunity to personally say thank you to the individual for their consideration and trust in the mission of the food bank. In speaking with an estate executor, he shared with me his thoughts on the matter. He said "what you have to consider is the last thing an individual can control via their will after their death is the distribution of their assets. Keep in mind the donor thought highly enough of the food bank and your impact on the community to entrust you with a portion of their life’s savings". He went on to say "you can bet the donor is up in heaven joyfully seeing smiles on our faces as we open the letter containing the food bank’s portion of their estate". So now ….whenever I receive a bequest notification, I always take a few minutes to say a prayer of thanks to the donor, with a smile on my face, to assure them of our commitment to responsible stewardship with their final gift!