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A will in many ways acts as a funnel for all your earthly goods.

These days, Link Charity could be a handy funnel when it comes to settling your estate.

Conventional wisdom had the will as the one and only coordinating document for the estate. In theory that is still a good idea.

However, there are several other important considerations that now make a claim.

Recommendation: name Link Charity Canada Inc. (legal name) as the one and only charity in your will. With a letter of direction, ask the Link Charity directors to distribute the gift received to all the charities of your choice.

Here are some advantages:

1. You can now name charities directly on RRSP and RRIF funds (see page 11) and thereby save the probate, executor, legal and accounting fees. Could save as much as 10%. Name Link Charity on those RRSP and RRIF accounts so everything is coordinated through one set of charitable instructions.
2. Your estate could contain stocks or other appreciated securities. If the executors transfer those directly to charity, they could save an extra 25% of capital gain from inclusion in taxable income. Using Link Charity as the one charity makes things so much easier and less expensive.
3. A letter of direction can be changed at any time. This is far more convenient and flexible than having the will amended by codicils drawn up by your lawyer.
4. A letter of direction could contain more instructions as to how each charity is to use its money, since these letters can be changed so readily. This allows the donor to target more current or more limited objectives.
5. Should one or more charities receive a gift from your estate anonymously? Simply leave the gift to Link Charity with that instruction. Your estate receives the charitable receipt from Link Charity, but the recipient charity will not be informed of the donor's identity. Other charities which may know, are informed.
6. Want some privacy? Any beneficiary that is left a percentage or a share (rather than a fixed sum) has a right not only to a copy of the full will, but also an inventory of all the assets, and has a right for a full accounting from the executors to make sure fair value was received for all assets. Instead of many charities seeing these details, a fairly anonymous charity such as Link Charity could do all these things for you and for family left behind.
7. Want to cut the work for your executors? Many wills include 8 or 10 charities. That's work for the executors, not only to send information, installment cheques, obtain clearances, final cheques, multiple charitable receipts, etc. It's far more efficient to have one charity act as the funnel to leave the gifts to your many charities.

In summary, Link could receive gifts directly from several RRSPs, RRIFs, life insurances, and your will, act as a funnel to receive them cleanly, and distribute the total proceeds to a multitude of charities as outlined in one letter of instruction from you. It is important to send a copy of the letter of direction to Link Charity so it can verify with you that the letter is clear in all respects, and can be acted upon in all respects.

Please feel free to download our sample letter of distribution available below.

Download Sample Letter of Direction (13KB) (This form is RTF. You should be able to open it in any word processor to fill in your information.)