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Your Values.
Your Legacy.
Our Future.

Your Values. Your Legacy. Our Future.

Supporting the American Enterprise Institute advances the ideas you believe in such as free enterprise, liberty, and human flourishing. Including AEI in your estate plans ensures this work continues for generations—while offering ways to meet your personal financial goals.

Learn More About Ways to Give

Giving Home > How to Give > Bequest

Bequest

A bequest is a gift you can make to support the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research's mission in your will or living trust or with a codicil.

A bequest allows you to continue to use the property you will leave to the American Enterprise Institute during your life and make a lasting impact on our work after you are gone.

Benefits of a bequest

  • Receive an estate tax charitable deduction.
  • Reduce the burden of taxes on your family.
  • Leave a lasting legacy with AEI.

Charitable bequest video

How a bequest works

A bequest is one of the easiest gifts to make. With the help of an attorney, you can include language in your will or trust specifying that a gift be made to family, friends, or AEI as part of your estate plan. You can also make a bequest using a beneficiary designation form.

Here are some of the ways to leave a bequest to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

  • Include a bequest to AEI in your will or revocable trust.
  • Designate AEI as a full, partial, or contingent beneficiary of your retirement account (IRA, 401[k], 403[b], or pension).
  • Name AEI as a beneficiary of your life insurance policy.

A bequest may be made in several ways

  • Specific Bequest. A specific bequest involves making a gift of a specific asset such as real estate, a car, other property, or a gift for a specific dollar amount. For example, you may wish to leave your home or $10,000 to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.
  • Percentage Bequest. Another kind of bequest involves leaving a specific percentage of your overall estate to AEI. For example, you may wish to leave 10 percent of your estate to AEI.
  • Residual Bequest. A residual bequest is made from the balance of an estate after the will or trust has given away each of the specific bequests. A common residual bequest involves leaving a percentage of the residue of the estate to AEI. For example, you may wish to leave 30 percent of the residue of your estate to AEI.

Below is sample language you can use when making a bequest to support AEI.

Review sample bequest language.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about leaving a bequest to us, please contact us. We would be happy to assist you. If you have been so generous as to include a bequest to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research as part of your estate plan, please take the time to let us know. We would like to recognize you and your family for your generosity.