Investing in Wilder Through Your IRA

When well invested over time, an IRA becomes a helpful tool to support your life goals. If one of your goals is to strengthen our community by supporting charities like Wilder - and you are 70 ½ or older - consider using your IRA to make a gift while reducing your taxable income.

A Smart Strategy for Giving

As you may know, once you reach age 73 you’re obligated to take a required minimum distribution (RMD) from your traditional IRA. For most people, RMDs provide the income they need to live in retirement. But if you don’t need all the income you receive through the RMD, you can reduce your income tax by transferring a gift directly to a charity. 

Called a qualified charitable distribution (QCD), this giving strategy is available to people beginning at age 70 ½. Through a QCD, you can gift any amount up to $105,000 per year to a qualified charity such as Wilder without having to pay income tax on that money. If your spouse is also age 70 ½, s/he also can donate up to $105,000 from his/her personal IRA. This strategy is also known as an IRA charitable rollover, and it generates neither taxable income nor a tax deduction so you benefit even if you do not itemize your deductions.

As long as the gift is transferred from your IRA provider directly to the charity, you do not incur the taxable income with an offsetting tax deduction, making a QCD a very tax efficient way to support Wilder or other charities.  Also – once you turn 73 – QCDs will count toward your required minimum distributions (RMD) from your IRA.

If you are thinking about making a larger gift to a charity over a period of years, this is one way to pre-fund or stack the gifts into one year while minimizing taxes. 

If you are interested in using your IRA to give to Wilder or other charities, here are some things to keep in mind:

• The distribution check (or electronic bank transfer) must be made payable directly to the charity, not you. Please see this sample request letter which you can share with your IRA administrator with gift transfer instructions.
• You will need a receipt from the charity for tax purposes.
• You cannot take a QCD from a company retirement plan (e.g., 401(k) plan). It must be made from a traditional IRA. Under certain circumstances, however, you may be able to roll assets from a pension, profit sharing, thrift savings plan (TSP), 401(k) or 403(b) plan into an IRA and then make the transfer from the IRA directly to Wilder. Please speak with your plan administrator to determine if a rollover to an IRA is available for your plan.  
• QCDs can be used to establish your own named endowment at Wilder, which provides a permanent source of funding for our overall mission or the programs you are most passionate about. If you are interested in learning more about named endowments, please contact us at anne.rodenberg@wilder.org.
• Your gift must be received by Dec. 31, 2024 for your donation to qualify this year.

To request a QCD to Wilder, please contact your IRA administrator and provide the following information:

Federal Tax ID Number: 41-0693889

Address:
Amherst H. Wilder Foundation
Attn: Advancement Office
451 Lexington Parkway North
Saint Paul, MN  55104

Your gift from your IRA will advance Wilder’s mission today, allowing you to be part of helping families move toward their goals. If you intend to make a QCD to Wilder, please let us know by emailing anne.rodenberg@wilder.org or by phone at 651-280-2449. We would also like to thank you for your generosity!

When considering a QCD, it’s highly recommended that you consult with your tax advisor to ensure you are using a giving strategy that is right for you.

Helpful Tip: Beneficiary Designations on Your IRA

No matter your age, you can designate Wilder as the beneficiary of all or a percentage of your IRA and it will pass to us tax-free after your lifetime. It’s simple, just requiring that you contact your IRA administrator for a change-of-beneficiary form or download a form from your provider’s website. Please be sure to let us know by emailing anne.rodenberg@wilder.org if you include Wilder as a beneficiary so we can thank you for your future gift to our mission.