Planned giving

Anyone can help save lives. When you donate to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), you are actively contributing to its efforts to help victims of armed conflict throughout the world. Depending on your financial and tax situation, a planned gift may be more advantageous for you than a one-off donation.

We recommend that you contact us for a personalized financial assessment to find the option that suits you best.

With a planned gift to the ICRC, you can:

• Help victims of conflict and other major violence who are in dire need
• Reduce your taxable income, profit or wealth
• Honour the memory of a loved one
• Support an organization close to your heart over the long term, and even after you are gone
• Make a tangible contribution to society
• Demonstrate your generosity.

Planned giving is first and foremost about helping others. It allows you to:

Anytime. You can set up a planned gift to the ICRC whenever you decide you want to help the victims of armed conflicts or other emergencies.

The best timing for the gift itself (right away or deferred, one-time or spread out over several years) will depend on your income (for individuals) or your profit (for companies), your assets and the tax regulations where you live. For example, it may be easier and better tax-wise for you to donate a share of your income or profit each year over several years rather than donate a large sum all at once.

Planned giving is a particularly attractive option for:

• People looking to retire in roughly 15 years who want to start planning now
• Business owners looking to make arrangements for handing over their business a decade in advance.
• We can provide a personalized assessment to find the option that suits you best, free of charge and with no obligations.

We provide a personalized assessment of your personal or company finances and tax and estate situation to find the option that best suits you and your goals. That may be a gift you can give today, or one you give later or spread out over time.

You could decide to make a bequest, donate an existing or new life insurance policy, transfer securities or give the proceeds from the sale of property or other assets. Each type of planned giving provides certain tax advantages, which depend on the tax regulations where you live.

When you make a planned gift, you are helping the ICRC (or other charity) make long-term plans for financing its work to help victims of armed conflict and other emergencies.

We at ACC can advise you on planned giving and propose an overall financial-planning strategy tailored to your personal and family circumstances, or those of your company. Our services include pension assessments and legal and tax advice.

Although planned giving is first and foremost about helping others, it needs to make sense for you too. It should be part of your overall financial-planning strategy and take into account all aspects of your financial situation, including tax regulations. We can look at your situation and help you find the option that will help you make the biggest difference and demonstrate your generosity.

You can make donations of:
Cash, one time or spread out over several years
Typically cash donations are given in the wake of tragic events or are part of a family tradition of supporting one or more charities. They can range from small to very large sums.

We at ACC can help you determine whether it would be best for you to make a one-time gift or spread out your donations over several years. For example, if you want to donate 200,000 Swiss francs, you could make a one-time gift from your accumulated wealth. But if your annual taxable income is 100,000 Swiss francs, you would only be able to deduct 20,000 on your taxes. However, if you donated 20,000 Swiss francs per year over a ten-year period, then the full 200,000 gift would be tax deductible.

Planned giving allows you to give a large gift a little bit at a time and also helps the beneficiary organization plan ahead. It can therefore help you to establish a relationship with the organization you support, as you work together for the future of humanity.
 
Securities, such as stocks or bonds
You can also donate shares, bonds, investment-fund units and other exchange-traded securities. We can help you decide whether, depending on your financial and tax situation, it would be better to donate the securities themselves or the proceeds from their sale, and whether to do it all at once or over a period of years.

Life insurance, either the cash value of an existing policy or a new policy that pays out at the end of a 10-, 15- or 20-year term, or upon your death

People spend nearly a quarter of their budget on insurance premiums without always understanding the ins and outs of their policies. Life insurance, for example, can be used in many ways: to protect your family in the event something happens to you, save for retirement, build up a nest egg for a loved one, guarantee a mortgage or start a business. Life insurance premiums, whether regular or in one lump sum, can also be viewed as an investment that allows the policy holder to choose where the assets will go and gives the beneficiary peace of mind.

If you would like to give an existing whole-life insurance policy to charity, you can cash in your policy and donate the cash surrender value either all at once or in several payments, depending on which option provides the biggest tax benefits. You can also keep your policy and designate the charity as the beneficiary when the policy reaches its term or upon your death.

If you want to set up a new policy to donate to charity, you can set your insurance premiums at the maximum tax-deductible amount (20% of your net income or 20% of your company’s net profit) under current tax regulations. The charity of your choice is designated the irrevocable beneficiary – meaning that the charity will receive the accumulated capital from the policy no matter what, either when the policy reaches its term or upon your death. The charity holds the original insurance contract and sends you an annual proof-of-donation document to include with your tax return.

We at ACC can work with you to find the type of planned gift that is best suited to your personal and professional circumstances and make sure that it fits into your overall financial-planning strategy.

Proceeds from the sale of assets, such as property, artwork or a company

Making a donation out of the proceeds of the sale of property, artwork or other assets can help you reduce the tax bill on the sale.

Decisions on handing over a small or medium-sized business are often made very late in the day, if not too late altogether. However, with careful planning you can anticipate – and minimize – the taxes you pay as part of the handover. By making donations over a period of several years to one or more charities, the company’s annual taxable profit can be reduced by up to 20% of net profit.

Bequests
Once you have secured your family’s future, you may want to leave part of your estate to one or more charitable organizations. Making a bequest is one of the most common forms of planned giving.

There are several ways to give in your will:

• By specifying an amount to be donated on your death
• By donating the amount remaining in your estate after all debts are paid and specific gifts are made
• By designating the charity as a contingent beneficiary, that is, should the primary beneficiary die first
• y splitting your entire estate between one or more beneficiaries.

You will, of course, receive an official acknowledgement of any bequests you make to the ICRC or another charity, which will be used when your estate is settled. By setting up and announcing your bequest during your lifetime, you can claim certain tax benefits over the course of several years, the specifics of which will depend place of residence.

ACC is based in Geneva and was founded primarily to advise people wishing to donate to the ICRC, whose headquarters are also in Geneva.
However, we are also happy to advise individuals or companies based in Switzerland or abroad wishing to make a donation to another organization in addition to or instead of the ICRC.

Planned giving is first and foremost about helping others. It allows you to:

• Make a difference and save lives
• Support a cause that is dear to you
• Help an organization over the long term, and even after you are gone
• Pledge your support to a recognized humanitarian organization
• Do your part
• Help build a better future for the most vulnerable members of society
• emonstrate your generosity.

We will take care of all the administrative details of your planned gift, from ensuring compliance with current regulations to working directly with the charity to ensure that your planned gift is used in accordance with your wishes. This also includes handling the paperwork, such as bank details and addresses and proof-of-donation documents.