Fulfilling Your Legacy Promise

Each Passover we sit together to tell our story and to remember messages of freedom. The real task of the Seder is to try to pass down these words, rituals and values to the next generation. Our community’s Create a Jewish Legacy program was created for this same purpose.

While we celebrate Passover, we recognize the success of our Create a Jewish Legacy program which recently passed the $11 million mark. This figure represents 169 legacy gifts promised by 81 families. These gifts will help ensure the future of our Jewish community and the state of Israel. As a result of these legacy gifts, the strong and vibrant agencies, congregations, museums and schools that our parents and grandparents worked so hard to build will be here for our children, our grandchildren, and generations to come. Create a Jewish Legacy promotes the message that all of us have the ability to make a difference in the lives of future Jewish generations.

This Passover, consider four more questions…

Do you support Jewish causes in Richmond annually?

Have you included these causes in your will?

Would you like to see a vibrant Jewish community for future generations?

What will be your legacy?

Creating your legacy is a simple four step process:

Promise
You decide that you want to leave something to the Jewish community-for Richmond, Israel, or elsewhere. At this moment you have probably not yet decided exactly how you will fund your legacy, nor precisely which causes or organizations will be the beneficiaries.

Honor
You share your personal statement in the Book of Life (always optional) about why you have created this legacy plan or your hopes for the future. In it you may speak of your grandparents, to your grandchildren, or about the organizations that have benefited from your leadership.

Formalize
You specify how you will fund your legacy: through bequest, insurance, a beneficiary designation of your IRA or other pension asset, or by establishing a life income plan. It is when you formalize that you can be assured your wishes will truly happen.

Fund
Your idea becomes reality because you have planned well. Your funds come to our community-into a permanent endowment fund in your family name-for the causes and beneficiaries that you have designated. You have kept promises to your community that you’ve always supported. Your gifts will now be there, stronger, for those you leave behind.

To create your legacy, please contact the Richmond Jewish Foundation office.