Planned Gifts & Bequests

What better way to be remembered than through the arts?

By including UMS as your beneficiary, you can create an enduring memorial for yourself, or for someone whose memory you wish to honor.

Through a planned gift, you can help enrich the cultural life of Southeastern Michigan and bring joy into the lives of thousands of people. In the process, you will be making an eloquent and lasting personal statement: the arts matter.

The Burton Tower Society

Your Legacy—Our Future

For over a century, UMS has been a focal point for culture and entertainment. Because of UMS, over the past century Ann Arbor has been a familiar place and a regular stop for such renowned classical music performers as Enrico Caruso, Leonard Bernstein, Luciano Pavarotti, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, and for groups ranging from the Philadelphia Orchestra to the Vienna Philharmonic and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

UMS has established the Burton Tower Society to recognize individuals who have made provisions for future support through bequests, trusts, or other planned gifts. Through such gifts, individuals are able to express their love for the performing arts and to create an artistic legacy. Planned gifts to UMS are also recognized in the U-M Monteith Legacy Society.

Your opportunity to give the gift of the arts.

Most people think of wills and estate plans as a way of providing for those they love, of assuring the financial security of family and close friends. But trusts and bequests can also be a way of asserting ideals and values, continuing worthwhile traditions, and extending our generosity to a wider group of beneficiaries for a greater good. UMS offers exactly this kind of opportunity. Contributions to UMS through your will, estate plan, or living trust will be used to endow concerts, youth programs, and creation of new work.

Learn more about bequests:

• A bequest to UMS is a way to ensure that the artistic experiences that have enriched your life will stimulate and inspire audiences for years to come.
• A bequest is a method people of all financial means can use to support the organizations they care about. A bequest is a transfer by will of property such as cash, securities, or tangible property to an individual or a charitable organization. You can structure your bequest as a fixed amount or as a percentage of your estate. Bequests can also be structured to take effect only after other named loved ones are no longer living, or after expenses related to the settlement of your estate have been paid.
• Because of the tax advantages associated with a bequest, you can ensure that assets from your estate that would otherwise go directly to government treasuries can instead be given to UMS to support programs and educational opportunities for future generations.
• For many donors a bequest offers the opportunity to make a more substantial gift than would be possible during the donor’s lifetime. Other donors view a bequest as an opportunity to round out a lifetime of giving with a lasting legacy to UMS.
  
• A bequest to UMS also qualifies you for membership in UMS’s Burton Tower Society and the University of Michigan’s John Monteith Society during your lifetime.

Your lawyer or tax advisor can assist you as with the option most appropriate for your circumstances and wishes.

To learn more about UMS’s Burton Tower Society and the specific giving opportunities available, we invite you to contact UMS at 734-764-8489 or the University of Michigan Office of Trusts and Bequests at 866-233-6661.