The start of the new year is an ideal time to consider the many charitable giving opportunities available for you to support the causes you care about most. Planning for the future can give you peace of mind—knowing you have made provisions for your loved ones and the nonprofit organizations, such as ours, that are most important to you.

A planned gift should be an integral part of an overall estate plan, which includes basic documents such as a will, powers of attorney for financial and health matters, and completed beneficiary-designation forms for retirement funds.

Here are some tax-smart gift ideas for you to consider:

Charitable bequest: The simplest planned gift is a charitable bequest made via a provision in your will or living trust. You can make either a lump-sum or a percentage bequest to us to ensure your support of our mission continues beyond your lifetime. Bequests can be made from assets realized from the sale of a home or from investment assets.

Estate gift of retirement-fund assets: Another way to make end-of-life gifts to a charitable organization is to give a percentage of remaining assets in retirement funds. From a tax standpoint, it would be better to make gifts to loved ones with Roth IRA funds, for they would not be taxed on those funds. They would be taxed on funds from a traditional IRA. But we, being exempt, are not taxed on them.

Current gift of IRA funds: Upon reaching the age of 73, when required mandatory distributions (RMDs) from an IRA begin, you could make outright contributions to support our work from your IRA. The contributions will not be taxed and will count towards your RMD.

Charitable remainder trust: You could contribute cash, securities, or personal property to a charitable remainder trust. You would receive income for life (either fixed or variable, depending on the type of trust), a charitable deduction that would reduce income tax, and capital-gain tax savings.

There are several other planned gift possibilities and combinations, and we would be happy to meet with you and your advisors for a confidential, no-obligation discussion of your options.