Joey Wahler (Host): It can be mutually rewarding for both parties, so we're discussing Legacy Giving at St. Joseph Hospital. Our guest, Brian Winslow. He's Executive Director of Philanthropy at St. Joseph Hospital. This is Wellness First, a St. Joseph Hospital podcast where we hear and learn directly from the experts on all things health and wellness.

Thanks for joining us. I'm Joey Wahler. Hi there, Brian. Welcome.

Brian Winslow, CFRE MS MPPM: Thank you, Joey.

Host: Great to have you aboard. So first, for those that aren't completely familiar, what exactly is Legacy Giving and why is it so important for St. Joseph Hospital?

Brian Winslow, CFRE MS MPPM: Sure. Legacy Giving, when we talk about Legacy Giving here at St. Joseph Hospital, what we're really talking about is planning for gifts in the future. And a lot of times that means a gift that you're giving after you're gone from this world, but not always. You will hear other terms besides legacy giving.

You may have heard something like bequest or plan giving. That's really what we're talking about here at St. Joseph Hospital. And it's important because it does help us provide great care for future generations when we have legacy givers. Currently, we have 43 legacy givers at St. Joseph Hospital.

Host: Wow, that's great. So what are some of the most common types of legacy gifts that donors can make to St. Joseph Hospital?

Brian Winslow, CFRE MS MPPM: There are as many legacy gifts as there are people who may make them. The different types could range from charitable annuities to charitable trusts, to being a beneficiary of a IRA. There's a whole slew of different vehicles you can use to make a legacy gift, but by far the most common, is a simple bequest. Mentioning St. Joseph Hospital in your will, it's as easy as saying, I would like to give X amount of dollars to St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua, New Hampshire. That's the easiest and the most common way to make a legacy gift.

Host: Gotcha. So, how can potential donors benefit from including St. Joseph Hospital in their estate plans?

Brian Winslow, CFRE MS MPPM: Well, there's a lot of ways to benefit, and I'll start off by saying the primary benefit is knowing that you're helping future generations here at St. Joseph Hospital. There are a slew of tax benefits. You can avoid probate. There are a slew of real life benefits that you can get when you consider a legacy gift and make a legacy gift.

I usually defer to lawyers and estate planners when we talk about that. For us here at St. Joseph Hospital, when I talk to a donor about making a legacy gift, I always recommend they talk to their lawyer or their estate planner. But then we talk about the other benefits. The great feeling you get, the fact that you will be publicly recognized, you'll end up in our annual report. There, depending on the gift and the gift vehicle, there may be naming opportunities so that your legacy can be advertised to individuals, and then you get special invitations to our key events here at St. Joseph Hospital.

Host: Speaking of which, how about sharing a success story or two as an example of how one of these legacy gifts has made a significant impact on the hospital and its programs that you've discussed?

Brian Winslow, CFRE MS MPPM: Like I mentioned, we have 43 individuals who've made legacy gifts to St. Joseph Hospital. One of the ones that sticks out to me when we talk about the benefits is the Caprio Endowment. We actually had a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Caprio, make a pretty significant gift to the hospital from their estate.

And in talking with the family, we determined that we wanted to treat it as an endowment so that that gift is always in the bank and invested and the money that comes out of those investments actually go towards the operations of our mobile health clinic. And that's one of the ways we're able to operate the mobile health clinic.

If you're not familiar with our mobile health clinic, we actually spend almost every day of the week out in the community providing health care, many different kinds of health care, and not all of that is reimbursable. The populations that we reach out to very frequently have low insurance or no insurance.

So it's very costly to do this. And it's been huge win that we've been able to have this planned gift helping us provide mobile health clinic services.

Host: And along those lines, Brian, if someone is interested in giving and there's a particular area of the hospital, whether it's a particular facility, maybe a specific area of specialty, can they earmark those funds to go in that direction?

Brian Winslow, CFRE MS MPPM: Most definitely, Joey. What typically happens is I will sit down with a donor and we'll have those conversations and make sure that their needs also match our needs. Right. It doesn't make a lot of sense to earmark to a part of the hospital that doesn't have high needs. But very frequently, individuals already have an idea of where they want to go and it's a place in the hospital that we know will need some future capital expenses or even some operational expenses.

So we sit down, we form a gift agreement. We do earmark, we what we call restrict the funds to specific use, and very frequently, planned giving includes restricted gifts like that.

Host: What steps should someone take if in fact they're interested in setting up a legacy gift for St. Joseph Hospital? You mentioned speaking to a lawyer. What other first steps are involved in the process?

Brian Winslow, CFRE MS MPPM: You're right. As you heard me say, I always recommend speaking to your lawyer or estate planner, but concurrently, give me a call. And I'll even say my phone number 603-884-4343. It's always good to have that kind of initial conversation with me so that we know we're on the same page. It's really that easy.

If you're interested in doing a bequest, I can give you sample bequest language to take to your lawyer. Or if you're just curious to know, hey, I want to make a restricted gift, I want to earmark these funds, is this possible. Certainly we can have that discussion. It's really that easy. It's talking to your estate planner and giving me a call. The rest of it, we can do together.

Host: Sounds great. A few other things here. First, you mentioned the hospital does recognize and honor those who include St. Joseph Hospital in their estate plans. I would imagine that if there's public recognition of some sort in the way of naming, et cetera, that down the road, that's got to be very fulfilling both for the donors and for their families years in the future, right, to be able to come back and see this in whatever form it takes.

Brian Winslow, CFRE MS MPPM: Yeah, the biggest part of this legacy. We do have legacy society here at St. Joseph Hospital. It's called St. Joseph the Worker Legacy Society. And we do list all the individuals publicly. We have plaques in the hospital. We make sure it's in our annual reports and other publications. Just so people know exactly who's been giving, and then the naming opportunities, of course, are very, very public.

They typically come with a ribbon cutting or a blessing. And a big sign. And people, I think, like that that's part of their legacy and certainly shows how important the hospital has been to them.

Host: When you talk about how important the hospital has been to so many people, what's your main message to those that may be considering this and are wondering, well, why St. Joseph Hospital? What's the biggest motivating factor that they should keep in mind?

Brian Winslow, CFRE MS MPPM: Well, St. Joseph Hospital is known for its quality care and if that's something that people feel is very important to them and they want to continue to come to St. Joseph Hospital and keep that quality of care up; helping us by making a gift that happens into the future will only help us keep that going for future generations.

Host: Absolutely. And in summary here, Brian, you've covered it a bit, but maybe in a little bit more detail, if you could, what advice would you give to those considering legacy giving who may be unsure about the process or benefits? You mentioned speaking to a lawyer, of course, but maybe tell us a what are one or two things people should be keeping in mind? What should they consider?

Brian Winslow, CFRE MS MPPM: One of the questions I get a lot, Joey, I think this will help answer this question, is from individuals who will either think I'm too young to be thinking about these legacy gifts, or I don't have the assets to even make a legacy gift. And, that's really a misnomer. You're never too young to be thinking about your estate.

If you have life insurance, if you own a car, if you have any assets whatsoever, trying to figure out what happens to them upon your death is something that's important. It doesn't matter what your age is. When we talk about individuals who think they don't have the assets, the average estate is much larger than people think.

You might not own your house outright, but you probably have some, 50 percent equity in it. That's a big chunk. So to think, I don't think I'm the person that can make a legacy gift, that probably isn't correct. And it's really all about timing. For me, I mean I can speak as a parent, I had a very simple will when I was young, first married.

But as soon as we had kids, our estate got more complex and that's when we realized we had more assets than we thought and that we could start naming nonprofit organizations in our will. And we were quite young then. We were maybe 30. And, we've kept that up and those, those legacy gifts have been able to grow, while we're still making sure we take care of our children.

 So if I were asked hey, what's your advice? My advice is it's never too early to think about it and it's always appropriate to try to figure out exactly what your estate's worth so that you can handle it correctly. Remember, if you don't have a will, the state gets to decide.

Host: Great advice indeed, and important to clear up some of those common misconceptions that you just mentioned. Brian, you also mentioned earlier that people really should start with you ideally in case they have any questions. So give us your phone number again, please.

Brian Winslow, CFRE MS MPPM: My phone number is 603-884-4343.

Host: All right, well folks, we trust you're now more familiar with Legacy Giving at St. Joseph Hospital. Brian Winslow, important work. Keep up the great job and thanks so much again.

Brian Winslow, CFRE MS MPPM: Thank you Joey.

Host: You got it. And for more information, please do visit stjosephhospital.com/support-st-joseph. If you found this podcast helpful, please do share it on your social media. And thanks so much again for being part of Wellness First St. Joseph Hospital podcast, where we hear and learn directly from the experts on all things health and wellness.