Current Outright Gifts

• Created by a local family to honor their late friend - a San Francisco career librarian - an endowment fund was established to protect habitat, restore trails, conserve natural resources and support the native plant nurseries in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The family and their friend had enjoyed birdwatching and hiking on the trails together for many years.
• When a community leader and former board member of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy passed away, friends and family established an endowment fund in his honor, to support preservation of the Presidio's natural beauty, forest and open space. Gifts continue to be made to the fund, which now exceeds $2.3 million.
  
• A longtime San Francisco resident had been looking for a meaningful way to pay tribute to his wife who passed away in 2002. Through the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy's Commemorative Bench Program he dedicated a bench at Mountain Lake overlooking the lake and the playground where, he said, "our children practically grew up." His three children are enthusiastic about the bench dedication. The couple walked daily to the park together, and even now, he continues to regularly trek between his home and Mountain Lake, which he says is as attractive as ever as a result of volunteer efforts to restore the park.
• Leslie Fidel Bailey of Boulder, Colorado provided an endowed fund to establish the Justine and Leslie Fidel Bailey Fellowship program for Rocky Mountain National Park in 1996. Its purpose was to offer a season-long research experience for scholars working on advanced degrees who could also benefit by using the park as their outdoor learning laboratory. Following the success of the Bailey Fellowship, the Rocky Mountain Association has received contributions to fund additional fellows. In 2001, a bequest from Muriel E. McCormick created a fund to benefit history students.
• After donating their time to Great Smoky Mountains National Park and to Friends of the Smokies for many years, a couple from Tennessee has taken the added step of making a bequest to the Friends' unrestricted operating endowment so their commitment to the park can continue long after they are gone.
• A generous donor approached Cuyahoga Valley National Park Association about his desire to make a gift in memory of his deceased daughter. He provided funds to assist in building a program at Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center. His commitment to the center will continue through a gift in his will to a local foundation, which establishes a fund for scholarships for urban children.
• The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation received it first endowment gift in 1997. The primary function of the endowment is to build a pool of charitable assets that will benefit the Parkway through the Foundation's projects and programs. The objective is to create long term discretionary income and the disposition of the funds will be determined annually by the Board of Trustees. The funds are placed with various community foundations along the Blue Ridge Parkway. In handling the endowment funds, the community foundations assume responsibility for:
  • Legal administration of the fund
  • Receiving, acknowledging and processing additional assets at any time
  • Managing the investment of the fund's assets
  • Re-investing the income from fund's assets
  • Preparing and filing all tax returns
  • Scheduling an annual audit - responding to federal regulations and audits
  • Providing periodic statements on the endowment's principal balance, and available income
  • Distributing earnings
  • Cooperating with the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation in endowment outreach
  • Coordinating with the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation in marketing
• Stanley and Hope Adelstein provide annual gifts to support education programs in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. They made a provision in their will to assure that annual donations will continue into the future. The Adelstein's believe so strongly in the importance of planned giving that they are hosting a dinner for current and prospective donors who make planned gifts in support of the park. The dinner will serve as a kick-off for Cuyahoga Valley National Park Association's Legacy Society.

Revocable Deferred Benefits

• An Oregon couple, both of whom are retired NPS rangers, met and married when they were employed in Yellowstone National Park in the 1970s. In 2006, they named the Yellowstone Park Foundation as a beneficiary in the will, with a $100,000 bequest designated to supporting the work and professional development of rangers in the Yellowstone National Park Protection Division.
• William Field avidly hiked the trails of Point Reyes National Seashore throughout his lifetime. He left a large bequest to the park for a visitor center. With a matching grant from the San Francisco Foundation, the impressive $1.2 million Bear Valley Visitor Center was built.
  
• A couple in their mid-thirties notified Glacier National Park that they named the park as the beneficiary of their $50,000 life insurance policy because they had a strong appreciation for Glacier and the park staff.
• A bequest donor first came to appreciate the Golden Gate National Recreation Area when her San Francisco City College biology class made regular trips to Crissy Field in the Presidio. Now in her mid-80s, she has volunteered at the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy for over fifteen years and enjoys the socialization as well as the satisfaction of helping to further the mission of the organization. She has named the Parks Conservancy as a beneficiary of her estate plan "because I really wanted to make plans for the organizations that I care about," she said.
• In 2006, Friends of the Smokies received a collection of photography from the estate of Peter Dreyer. After receiving a heart transplant in the mid 1980s, Mr. Dreyer took up photography as his primary hobby, and he won numerous awards for his work, including many images from Great Smoky Mountains National Park, such as the one below. Friends of the Smokies now uses the images from Mr. Dreyer collection for their website and various publications, helping convey the beauty of the Smokies to current and future supporters.
  
• During the final years of her life, Evelyn Bales gave three gifts to Friends of the Smokies, none more than $50. In her will, though, she bequested more than $127,000 for unrestricted support for Friends of the Smokies.
• Joe Hankins, a logger from Washington State and a well-loved park character of the 1950's and 1960's who died in 1975, bequested $150,000 to the National Park Foundation for use at Denali National Park. The gift was used to fund an exhibit at the Eielson Visitor Center on the tundra environment.
• A park ranger at Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area recently inquired about language to name the park as a beneficiary in his will.
• A Texas couple made a first-time donation of $50 to the Yellowstone Park Foundation in 2006. Within six months they informed the Foundation that they had revised their will to include a $10,000 bequest to be used for wildlife conservation in Yellowstone.
• An annual donor to Friends of Virgin Islands National Park, who strongly advocates the value of planned giving, issued a challenge to the organization in 2005. He would include the Friends in his will if they found five new planned gifts. After identifying five donors, the organization is now listed as a beneficiary in that donor's will.