Kansans urged to remember communities in their wills

    Imagine that a prominent couple in your community dies, and their children come home for the funeral. They remain for about a week, tying up loose ends and seeing relatives and friends, then they head back home.
     On their way out of town, the children stop by the bank to claim the money they've inherited from their parents and clear out those accounts before heading home.
    That money's gone, and it may not come back.
    Approximately $66 billion will transfer from one generation to the next in Kansas by 2020, and that figure is expected to rise to $598 billion by 2060, according to a recent study commissioned by the Kansas Health Foundation. The study was conducted by the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University.
    In Ford County alone, approximately $535.3 million is expected to change hands over the next 12 years.
    Community foundations across Kansas, including the Community Foundation of Southwest Kansas in Dodge City, are launching a campaign to keep a portion of that wealth in their communities. The goal is to encourage Kansans to start thinking about planning their estates and leaving a portion of their wealth — up to about 5 percent — to their communities.
    "We're not saying, 'Give it all,'" said Pat Hamit, executive director of the Community Foundation of Southwest Kansas. "We know people are going to give to their church, they're going to give to their schools and they're going to make sure that their families are taken care of. We're saying, 'Give us 5 percent. Put it back into the community.'"
    He said if 5 percent of the $66 billion figure were designated for community foundations, that would generate $3.3 billion that could be invested in community betterment projects or local nonprofit organizations.
    Community foundations are tax-exempt public charities created by and for local residents. Their mission is to help people support the issues they care most about, either immediately or through their will.
    The foundations can identify a community's long-term needs and help people make decisions about their charitable giving.
    Kansans have accumulated a lot of wealth since World War II, including investments in real estate, said Margaret Hamilton, chairwoman of the Community Foundation of Southwest Kansas' board of directors. She said many southwest Kansas farmers acquired land for $19 an acre and are now selling it for hundreds of dollars per acre.
    "Children have now moved away, and they're not as interested in the family farm as three generations ago, so they sell the land and the money goes elsewhere," said Hamilton, who is also the vice president and trust officer of Sunflower Bank. "We're right in the path of all of that, and we're trying to set up detours here and there."
    Part of the foundations’ goal is to educate people about estate planning and encourage them to remember their communities in their wills.
    Aubrey Abbott Patterson, president of the Hutchinson Community Foundation, said people who want to leave part of their estate to their communities should start planning that legacy now.
    "Many times, donors don't have heirs to pass it on to. And unless there's some sort of planning, that money goes to the government," she said. "There's a lot that can be done to make that a positive good for a community — the community that they loved and that helped them accumulate what they've got."

Reach Eric Swanson at (620) 408-9917 or e-mail him at eric.swanson@dodgeglobe.com.