2009-10 Season

Planned Giving

What better way to be remembered than through the arts?

By including UMS as your beneficiary, you can create an enduring memorial for yourself -- or for someone whose memory you wish to honor.

Through a planned gift, you can help enrich the cultural life of southeastern Michigan and bring joy into the lives of thousands of people. In the process, you will be making an eloquent and lasting personal statement...that the arts matter.

The Burton Tower Society

Your Legacy -- Our Future
For over a century, UMS has been a focal point for culture and entertainment. Because of UMS, Ann Arbor has been a familiar place and a regular stop over the past century for such renowned performers as Enrico Caruso, Leonard Bernstein, Luciano Pavarotti, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, and for groups ranging from the Philadelphia Orchestra to the Vienna Philharmonic and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

UMS has established the Burton Tower Society to recognize those individuals who have made provisions for future support through bequests in their wills, trusts, or other planned gifts. Individuals are able to express their love of the performing arts and create an artistic legacy. Planned gifts to UMS are also recognized in the U-M Monteith Legacy Society.

Your opportunity to give the gift of the arts.
Most people think of wills and estate plans as a way of providing for those they love, of assuring the financial security of family and close friends. But trusts and bequests can also be a way of asserting our ideals and values, continuing worthwhile traditions and extending our generosity to a wider group of beneficiaries, for a greater good. UMS offers exactly that kind of opportunity. Contributions to UMS through your will, estate plan, or living trust will be used to endow concerts, youth programs, and creation of new work.

Giving options that benefit you and your loved ones, as well as UMS.
Those interested in making a gift to UMS have many options to choose from, each offering its own advantages. Those advantages extend not only to UMS, but to donors and their beneficiaries as well.

    For example:
  • A specific bequest allows you to designate a particular gift for UMS.
  • Through residuary bequests, you can first provide for your family members and friends, and then leave all of your remaining assets to UMS for specific or general purposes.
  • With a contingent bequest, you can direct that the property bequeathed to a particular person go to UMS if that person does not survive you.
  • Living, testamentary, or charitable remainder trusts enable you to provide lifetime income for yourself, your heirs, and even other beneficiaries before the assets are made available to UMS.
Your lawyer or tax advisor can assist you as with the option most appropriate for your circumstances and wishes.
To learn more about UMS's Burton Tower Society and the specific giving opportunities available, we invite you to contact UMS at 734-764-8489 or the University of Michigan Office of Trusts and Bequests at 866-233-6661.