Gwen loved her lakeside community. She’d moved there many years ago, long enough ago to think of it as her hometown. And Gwen knew she’d never leave. What she appreciated most about the place was that its residents treated it like their community. They weren’t just living there to get on with life. They were living there to care for one another and their community. Everywhere one turned, and in every season, you could see the community’s life. Gwen could also see how certain community leaders both today and long ago had made the place the way it was. And something told her that she could be among those leading benefactors.

Communities

Americans are famous for being itinerant. We are always on the move. Yet many of us spend nearly all our lives within about a ten mile radius of home. Indeed, we spend a great deal of time at home. We also draw a lot from our home communities, not just as a safe, secure, and familiar place, but also for a sense of history, identity, and belonging. The answer to the question where you’re from isn’t about an address but about an experience, culture, and affinity. We draw a lot from our communities. And for a broad and lasting legacy, we can give a lot to our communities, too. Blessing your family is a good legacy start. Blessing your community gives your legacy another dimension, one that your family can also appreciate and from which they, too, can benefit. 

Neighborhood

Your community begins with your neighborhood, those who live close enough around you to see you often around your home. When we think of positively impacting the lives of others outside of our family, we may cast our vision far. We may think of needful populations like the disabled or homeless, ready to go look for how and where to serve. But our neighbors are right there. And neighbors have needs and interests, too. Indeed, that’s the special opportunity that neighbors present for encouraging them with a legacy. We do not seek them out specifically to serve their needs but instead bless and encourage them naturally. A legacy need not always solve problems. A legacy can instead simply flow generously and naturally to those who are nearest you. Find ways to celebrate and care for your neighbors. Organize periodic neighborhood get-togethers. Keep track of neighborhood illnesses, injuries, and hospitalizations, where a neighbor might need children watched, meals prepared, or pets fed. Help a neighbor with a yard project. Configure the outside of your home with gardens, walks, and seating to welcome neighbors to walk and stop by to say hello. And then treat your neighbors with the kindness and interest you treat your family members and yourself. In whatever way you see available, let your legacy flow through your neighborhood. 

Volunteering

Volunteering is one way to build a legacy within your community. Some small communities survive on volunteers, from the guys who man the all-volunteer fire department, mow the town square, and empty the trash at the playground, to the gals who take turns as crossing guards, classroom aides, and hospital auxiliaries. Other communities thrive on volunteers, from the guys who put on the fireworks show every Independence Day and organize the 5k run, to the gals who raise funds for the library and decorate the city hall every season. In communities of all sizes, volunteers can provide critical goods and services, staffing food pantries, soup kitchens, and clothes closets, providing transportation for medical care, and lending helping hands at the crisis center and homeless shelter. Volunteers can also enhance civic life, organizing parades, youth and adult athletics leagues, beach and park clean ups, playground repairs, and fundraisers for schools, libraries, nature paths, and civic reclamation and improvement projects. Every vital community has its local heroes whose legacy lives on in the rich tapestry of civic life. Make your community part of your legacy.

Civics

Communities also have formal civic and government leaders who are leaving legacies governing the community. Civic leaders sometimes serve as volunteers. In small towns, even the mayor may go uncompensated, along with the city council members, school, hospital, parks, and library board members, and members of other boards, councils, and committees. Larger towns may compensate part-time civic leaders, either nominally or modestly, while cities of some size may treat civic leaders as full-time employees. In whatever form, though, public service is generally a sacrifice made for the community’s benefit. Civic leaders can soon lose count of their meetings and conferences, making civic involvement more a way of life than a light and temporary commitment. Sound civic leadership, though, is vital to community stability, vitality, and success. Poor leadership can break the back of a community’s finances, infrastructure, and spirit. If you have the knowledge, judgment, and skills, stand in the leadership gap for your community. You’ll soon find yourself building a visible, impactful, and lasting legacy.

Business

Communities also depend on vital businesses for goods, services, investment, innovation, growth, and employment. Community business leaders leave legacies, too. A town’s history is largely a history of its businesses. Some towns are sawmill towns, while other towns are steel mill towns, and other towns are textile, agriculture, manufacturing, entertainment, tourist, college, or technology towns. All communities also have businesses providing consumer goods and services, from the grocery store and dry cleaner to the auto repair shop and drug store. Communities benefit from business leadership. Business leaders can advocate for the transportation, parking, utilities, and technology infrastructure that they and their customers, clients, students, and patients need. Business leaders can also advocate on important local governance issues having to do with issues and opportunities like social or recreational districts, noise and hours restrictions, outdoor seating and service, and sidewalk and street sales. Consider local business leadership as another legacy opportunity.

Foundations

Communities also thrive on the philanthropic spirit and legacy of their benefactors. The public places, spaces, and amenities in your city, town, or village may bear their names. The hospitals, schools, libraries, halls, centers, stadiums, arenas, parks, squares, circles, rinks, walkways, beaches, riverscapes, and nature areas you and your family enjoy may all have had benefactors donating the funds and lands to construct and maintain them. If you have the substantial means, you may establish a family foundation to fund local community projects and activities, as a later chapter further explains. If your means do not warrant your own family foundation, then you may still have enough to establish a fund within your local community foundation. Community foundations differ from private foundations in that they solicit donations from the public to manage for the benefit of the local community. While you might need $1 million to start your own family foundation, your local community foundation might accept your donation of just $5,000 to $10,000 to establish a fund for the local interest you wish to promote. Consider leaving a legacy with your local community foundation. If your community doesn’t have its own foundation, perhaps you might be the one to help get a community foundation started.

Management

When you establish a fund at your local community foundation, you and your family may choose the local charitable cause, venue, or activity to promote. You may, for instance, wish to support local schools, playgrounds, parks, or nature areas. You may want to see your local library or hospital benefit and grow. Or you may wish to support social services like homeless shelters or crisis and counseling centers. Once you establish your fund’s charitable mission, the community foundation director, staff, board, and committees will ensure the fund’s proper management to promote the mission that you defined. The community foundation’s policies determine other parameters for your fund’s management. Annually distributing five percent of your fund’s three-year average balance is a typical policy, enabling your fund to persist and even grow over an extended period, especially if supplemented with later donations and a bequest. Expand your legacy with a sound plan for a fund at your community foundation.

Bequests

When shaping your legacy through your will and its bequests, you may decide to include your community in your bequests. You don’t have to pass all of your estate to your family members. You may, after providing appropriately for family member honor, legacy, and support, decide to bequeath a fund at your local community foundation, promoting whatever local charitable interest you wish. That fund may bear your name or your family’s name in perpetuity. Alternatively, you may bequeath funds to any other local civic or charitable organization promoting your community. You may, for instance, have long been a volunteer at a local soup kitchen or other social service center that you wish to bless with a modest or substantial legacy from your estate. You may also have volunteered at the local library or hospital and want to bless it, too. Or you may instead have always wanted your community to have a special amenity that it currently lacks, perhaps tennis courts, a basketball court, a playground, or even a pool at the local park. Use your vision for your community to bless it with a special asset that will live on long after you have passed. Your bequest and the amenities it provides may inspire others to join in your legacy with their own gifts and bequests. 

Reflection

How are you involved in your local community? How do you exhibit care for your neighbors? What volunteering do you do in your local community? What volunteering would you like to try? What local issue, problem, or opportunity is your greatest interest or concern? Can you see yourself in local civic leadership to address that interest or concern? Do you have the knowledge, skills, and judgment to govern your local community better than you believe it currently is? If you’re in business locally, should you be taking a greater role in local business leadership? What issues could you address and opportunities could you pursue to promote local business? Do you have the wherewithal to establish a fund at your local community foundation? Should you include your local community foundation or another local charitable interest in your will and estate plan? 

Key Points

• Your local community is another natural object for your legacy.

• You can build a legacy of care within your own neighborhood.

• Your volunteering can broaden your legacy within your community.

• Taking on civic leadership posts can further broaden your legacy.

• Local business leadership can leave a lasting legacy, too.

• Establish a fund at your local community foundation for a legacy.

• Your community foundation fund can specify your local mission.

• Use bequests from your estate to build your local community legacy.

Read Chapter 7.