Charitable Bequest Headlines

New York papers like the NY Post and the NY Daily News always seem to have interesting takes on charitable bequests.

One of today's Daily News headlines focused on the "megabucks" of a woman who passed away with around a $300,000 estate.

http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/08/13/2009-08-13_eccentric_hippie_had_megabucks_to_match_a_huge_heart_.html

In a previous story about this bequest on Monday, the Daily News reported "Israel's Hebrew University gets $100K from NY homeless Holocaust survivor." Today's story was about how she really wasn't homeless. In that first story, they described the bequest as a "whopping gift to the Jewish college."

I think $100,000 is a significant bequest but for anyone who has worked inside larger non-profit organizations, this is by no means "whopping" or "megabucks." It's actually a typical sized bequest and a typical story, an unexpected gift from an unexpected donor. It goes to show that even those people who have modest wealth - and $300,000 is certainly modest these days - often leave significant charitable legacies.