JOIN OUR LEGACY CIRCLE
Remember the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation in your will or trust to make a difference for generations to come. A legacy gift makes an enduring contribution to our community and serves as an inspiration to others, while continuing to further your personal story, values and vision.
Make parks and trails your legacy.
Make parks and trails your legacy
Make a gift for the future of the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation and become a valued member of our Legacy Circle.
When you arrange a gift to Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation in your estate, you join a group of visionary supporters who care deeply for the island’s public parks, trails, and spaces for recreation.
Legacy gifts require no immediate donation, with transfers taking place after your lifetime. You can always change your mind, and a gift in any amount is welcome. For an unrestricted gift that allows Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation to determine how to use the funds based on the most pressing needs, use the following language for your will and/or trust:
“I give Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit legally incorporated in Washington State and located on Bainbridge Island, WA, the sum of $ ____________ (or ___% of my residuary estate) for general operating purposes.”
Our federal tax identification number is: 91-1855049.
If you would like to designate your provision for Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation to use for a specific purpose, please contact us so we can best understand your philanthropic intent and provide you with tailored language.
The Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation recommends consulting your attorney, estate planner, or financial advisor to determine what’s best for your needs. We cannot offer direct guidance on specific estate planning methods.
Susan Levy on Legacy Giving for parks and trails
At every stage in Susan Levy’s nearly 40 years on the island, parks and trails have been central to her family and her life.
Her children played soccer at Battle Point and baseball at Rotary Field. When she turned 60, she learned to snowshoe and summited Mount St. Helens through a parks class. In retirement in Winslow, she finds quiet respite at nearby Moritani Preserve, shared with neighbors and visitors alike.
Susan Levy and her grandchildren Louise, 8 and Silas, 6.
She has special memories through the years of taking New Year’s Day walks through Fort Ward Park with her husband Mac Kennedy, “those cold, crisp days when the mountains are out, the water is dazzling and the whole year is in front of you.”
A memorial bench now honors Mac in the Grand Forest, another favored walk.
“Now my grandkids come over from Seattle for summer camp in Bainbridge parks,” she says. “How fun is that?”
A champion of Legacy Giving – remembering her favorite causes in her estate planning – Susan has included the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation in her will. She hopes others will join her, “giving forward” through their estate planning so their favorite parks and trails can be enjoyed for generations to come.
“Parks and trails are the crown jewel of Bainbridge Island,” she says. “It’s something our generation can look to and say, ‘We did this right.’ To continue to do this right, to make sure this lives on, we have to look to what our legacy is going to be. Part of my legacy is going to be remembering the Parks & Trails Foundation in my estate, so others who come after me can enjoy them as I have.”
Levy is already a member of the Parks & Trails Foundation’s Stewards Circle, sustaining donors who give throughout the year to support the organization’s work. She enjoys her “ongoing, meaningful conversation” with the Foundation, through group walks and previews of projects like the Arbor, Farm and Lost Valley trails as they unfold. She can see today’s gifts to parks and trails in action.
As she gives in the present, Levy is using estate planning to project her love of parks into the future. She chooses the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation over national organizations because of the impact her gift will make locally.
It was as simple as adding a codicil to her will. Her children, primary beneficiaries of her estate when that day comes, support her designating a gift to parks and trails that will outlast her own time here.
“I remember when I moved to the island in 1988, a woman told me, ‘it doesn’t matter what you give, but everybody gives. That’s what makes Bainbridge Island special,’” she says. “I don’t have a lot, but I have something, right? And parks have given me so much pleasure, in contemplative moments and pure joy. It’s truly nothing to be taken for granted.”