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Currently 40% of fourth graders do not read at grade level. The problem starts in the preschool years. Too few young children enter kindergarten ready to learn to read.
Your gift will be an important contribution toward helping the students of Longview achieve their fullest potential.
The start of the school year is a time for great excitement. Unfortunately, for children with reading problems, whether in first grade or higher, it can be a time of frustration and failure.
There are many excellent ways for friends of Crisman to make an important and lasting gift to the school while gaining unique financial advantages for themselves. These giving opportunities include:
Gifts to Crisman may be unrestricted or may be designated to benefit a specific area program. In both cases they may memorialize or honor a loved one. The possibilities include:
Gifts to endowment -- the permanent fund from which Crisman draws interest annually -- are gifts of permanence. Only the interest is used each year, which gives the donor the dual advantage of supporting Crisman's long-term financial well-being as well as its annual operational needs. As Crisman's endowment continues to grow, it will have an increasingly important impact on Crisman's educational programming. It will also support scholarships, keep teacher salaries and benefits at a competitive level, enhance school operations, and provide for continued teacher training.
To learn more about these ways to reach your own charitable and financial goals or to learn more about Crisman's Endowment Fund, please contact the main office at (903) 758-9741. We welcome your interest, and your inquiry is entirely confidential and creates no obligation.
Definitions of Giving Opportunities
Gifts of Cash:
Cash gifts are tax-deductible in the year the gift is given. In many cases, employers will match the donated amount, thus making it possible for a donor to double or triple a gift. Interested donors can acquire information on matching gifts from their company personnel office or from the Crisman Office.
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Gifts of Securities:
Donors may use stocks and securities as their gift in whole or in part. If the securities have appreciated greatly, the donor may find it possible to make a larger gift at a lower cost than if the gift were made in cash. Instructions for transferring stock to the school can be obtained from the Crisman Office.
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Life Insurance Gifts:
Donors can make the charity the beneficiary of a life insurance policy. This is the most common type of planned gift among younger people (age 30 - 50). If the charity is made both owner and beneficiary of the policy, the donor can get a tax deduction for approximately the cash value of an existing policy and/or for any premiums paid after the gift is made.
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Charitable Bequests in a Will:
This is by far the most common type of planned gifts. A charitable bequest can be included in a new will or added by codicil to an existing will.
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Gifts of Home or Farm with Retained Tenancy (life estate gifts):
Donors can give their primary residences to the charity yet continue to live in them with full rights of occupancy for their lifetimes. They receive a large current income tax deduction based on the charity's future right to the property.
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Charitable Gift Annuities:
A gift annuity is similar in principle to a charitable trust: The donor transfers funds to the charitable cause and, in return, receives a lifetime income and valuable tax benefits. There are important differences between charitable trusts and gift annuities that a donor interested in this avenue of giving would learn, but annuities can simply be thought of as another type of "life-income gift" along with charitable remainder trusts.
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Charitable Remainder Trusts:
The donor places assets irrevocably in a trust fund and in return the donor (and a second person, if desired) receives income for life, at an unchangeable rate set in advance. The donor also qualifies for major tax savings in income taxes, capital gains taxes, and estate taxes. Then after the lifetime(s) of the donor (and second person), the assets in the trust belong to the charitable cause. These are highly popular gifts because they enable donors to obtain important financial benefits during their lives while also making a large charitable gift. They are "giving and receiving" gifts.
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Charitable Lead Trusts:
Lead trusts are a major variation on other planned gifts. The charity receives the benefits now and the donor's heirs receive major tax benefits later, rather than the reverse. Lead trusts are primarily for the use of affluent donors who want to pass assets to heirs with greatly reduced or eliminated estate taxes. Since estate taxes can take over half of a large estate, and since most efforts to avoid estate taxes have been eliminated by tax laws, the lead trust can be a very valuable means of increasing the estate received by heirs. Donors place assets in a trust fund and the trust pays an annual income to the charity at a set rate for a set period of years. At the end of the trust term the assets revert to the donor's heirs, but with greatly reduced or eliminated estate taxes. When the trust is funded with assets which are increasing significantly during the trust term, the estate tax savings are even more important.
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Revocable Trusts:
Donors place assets in a trust fund which pays them an income for life and provides that, if the trust is intact at their deaths, the funds in the trust go to the charity as a gift. However, donors retain the right to change their minds and cancel the trust. Because of that provision, there are no tax benefits in such a trust (other than estate tax savings, if the trust is sill in force at the donor's death).
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Retirement Plans:
Donors who wish to make a bequest to Crisman should consider naming the school as a direct beneficiary of all or a percentage of the assets left in their retirement plans. These assets passing to Crisman will escape both the estate tax and income tax, although they may be subject to the excess accumulation tax if the plan is sufficiently large.
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Memorials:
By giving to Crisman in memory of a loved one, donors turn their loss into a legacy that will benefit countless children with learning disabilities.
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Honorary gifts:
Giving to Crisman in honor of a special someone allows the honored individual to feel valued and countless children with learning disabilities to benefit from that connection.
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Financial aid:
Donors may designate their gifts to provide financial aid for qualifying students, thereby ensuring a diverse student body.
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Individual Departments or Divisions within the school:
Donors may specify that their gift is to be used for the betterment of a particular department or division within the school.
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Endowment:
Gifts to endowment given in perpetuity and may be either unrestricted or named endowed funds. Unrestricted gifts to endowment contribute to Crisman's long-term financial well-being and provide support to the areas of scholarships, teacher and staff salaries and benefits, school operations, and teacher training.
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Named Endowed Funds are simply gifts given to Crisman's Endowment Fund in honor or memory of someone. Such funds may be unrestricted for general support or restricted to support only a certain area, such as teacher training.
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Online Donation
Thank you for your contribution!
Credit card processing for online donations is unavailable. Your support is important to us, and we ask that you please forward your check or money order via regular mail to:
The Crisman School
2455 N Eastman Road
Longview, TX 75605
Thank you for your support..
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