good morning. we're joined in a conversation about what is called the community legacy project. it's a project in the jewish community to encourage people to leave a legacy to organizations and synagogues that they value in the community as a way to ensure the community's vibrantsy from generation to generation. and we're joined by rabbi marvin goodman.

and with him is elliott lavein. they help organizations do fundraising through the state of california. marvin and elliott, welcome. so the community legacy project is a long phrase for what? >> it's a project that we started in the bay area about a year ago, a little over a year ago. and it is funded by a national group as well as the federation, a group called the ravine partners that provide funding to start innovative projects around the country in the jewish community. they're funding fives communities to start a legacy program within each of the communities. and they've helped that happen by doing a lot of funding themselves. so it is a project, as you said, to help institutions learn how to raise money in

different ways. >> and it is to encourage supporters of organization to actually name that organization in their estate plan? >> right. it's an opportunity for people that have been making donations to organizations and supporting organizations with their time and financial resources for years. it's an opportunity for us to think beyond their life to help the organization maintain its viability and to the years to come. so we have -- trying to make it easy to make sure that the organizations live and survive in the years to come. >> most of the time i think most organizations think of giving as something that you do in your own lifetime because

you're grateful that you were helped by an organization. if you belonged to a synagogue and nourished by that synagogue, then you give a donation to that synagogue each year in an annual campaign. why is it important to think about giving beyond one's own lifetime? >> gifts like these are as much and exchange of value as they are an exchange of money. a planned gift is one that one may look at what they may given to an organization. an annual gift is one that someone makes available at any given time or new initiative or emergency program or capital program. a legacy gift is an opportunity

to take a look at one's entire portfolio and estate. and people can make gifts that they could not conceive possible in their live times. >> i think most of us think that we give out of what we might think discretionary income after we've paid rent or mortgage or family member or bought groceries and made other decisions about our entertainment budget and out of that we give from what is left. but this is about understanding what you have in your entire set of assets, so to speak and that you can give beyond what you just have left. >> that is exactly it. and that is why people can make commitments that they never dreamed possible in their life times. >> i think it's also interesting time to start during the financial crisis in our community in the world. it allowed people that were not

able to give in the particular moment because they didn't have the ready assets to give to think into the distance into the future and put aside money and value as elliott ted -- elliott said. it's about people able to share their values to the next generation. we'll take a quick break. joins us to continue to wonderful conversation about this.

. welcome back. we're -- middle of a

conversation about leaving one's legacy from generation to generation. why in a basic sense do you think people make a decision to give beyond their own lifetime? >> i'll reality topersonly i decided, my wife and i decided that we wanted to leave something to organizations where we lived that are important to us. we sat and talked to our kids about it so they know that this was something that we valued and it was very important to us that was going to, in a matter of speaking, potentially impact them. and we are giving because we feel like these organization have been so wonderful to us and supportive of us and did so much to the community, that we want to make sure after we die, that those organizations are able to continue to thrive and to flourish. >> >> bring up and important point

that naturally people would think about but not always feel comfortable talking about, which is that typically, let's say somebody has children, they typically want to left estate seasonally to the children. -- essentially to the children. i'm just saying as an example, 90% to the children and 10% to the organizations that i care about, and not only to the organizations that i care about and doing that is a value statement that of its own inheritance to my children to tell them what i think is important in the world. and thing that is the part that people don't completely understand in some ways some of the difficult conversations that they may have in a family but what it means in values and passing them on from generation to generation. >> and the decision to make a commitment like this personally is a profound one outside of the mechanics of looking at

one's portfolio and ones estate. it's a statement of what have is important and what do i want my legacy to be? people have all kinds of legacy. they have a legacy of their memory and the legacy of their children sometimes mean to them. but it's a legacy about the communities and what they want to support and a recognition that someone did it before them that write sit today or the services that i'm receiving from my community, someone planted that seed. it could have been ten generations ago. it could have been a year ago. and there's a lot of reflection that goes on about what do i want my legacy to be. and that's what the conversations are really all about. >> i think it brings it to a spiritual level. it's a leap of page in any ways to make those decisions. >> it's probably ultimate kind of charitable gift. it deals with values. it deals with what is in your

gut. and it's an opportunity to let the world know that there's something that is very valuable to you that you want to support in this ultimate way. >> how many organizations from the community are part of this project. >> we call them teams. there are 16 teams. there are 17 organizations and 16 teams. >> and what do the teams actually do? >> people like elliott go out to each of the teams. they have a coach and they get trained and they learn how to go out and have a conversation with somebody to try to elicit from them what it is that makes the organization so special to them. and eventually it gets to the point of saying, would you consider leaving a legacy to your organization? >> it's interesting because a matter of truth in advertising in the bay area jewish healing

center is one of the teams. and elliott is one of our coaches. we did not realize how many people were already on their own thinking about leaving a legacy gift and/or had but just had not told us. so they actually valued the value of being anonymous and really assuming it would be a surprise to us once we found out. but given the opportunity said, you know what we want you to know that we've done this. >> that's a good point. people think of fundraising sometimes as choreographed sales. but in a legacy program with organizations like yours and other groups, that is really not the case. this is an opportunity for people to express what they've

done. in the case of your organization they made the commitment and make the commitment somewhat public that in a why that inspires others to the same. >> it would be nice if we knew the people that made legacy gifts because we would like to honor them and thank them and they would be an inspiration to their friends and neighbors that may want to give gifts. so we would love to know who has been giving gifts and understand that there's a lot of desire to be anonymous. but there's a wonderful opportunity for them if they let us know. >> we're going to continue in just a moment here. and we're going to say good-bye to the elliott and be joined by another gift to talk about leaving a legacy gift. we'll be right back on motion

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welcome back. we're continuing our conversation about the community legacy project within the context. jewish community and we're joined again by rabbi marvin goodman who is the director of the northern rabies. and welcome irene. she is a long time of our congregation in san francisco and a team leader of the congregation legacy efforts. we're in the middle of this conversation and it seems like a natural time to ask you, how do you work in your congregation on this issue and how do you work with your coach? where are you in that process? >> our coach came to us around the middle of last year.

i think it was probably around april or so. and it seemed that in order to launch our project there were lots of administrative things that we had to do. we had to create a case statement, which was -- took a long time. we had a lot of precipitation from our members and we dug into our history and came up with a case statement that eventually got edited by dozens of people. and so that was one big project and then we had to create our own letter of intent and we had to set up systems for how to launch this project and to announce in our newsletter, get our board to approve it. so the coach really was there all along the way. have you done this? have you set up your flow chart? have you done your project plan. have you done your letter of

intent. so the coach was there initial through administratively launch us. once we had launched, he then came and spoke to our board and spoke to our team, gave us tips on how to talk to people what is important what it is that motivates people to make this kind of gift. and he helped us begin a different way of thinking and getting us ready to go out and ask our members for a legacy. >> i think some of the things that fright ten people about asking for money or even think of this is when they sort of think what the actual concrete steps are. it might be important for us to say that a case statement is really like a fancy phrase for a piece of paper in which one in a few paragraphs writes down and organization is an important part of someone's life and why a synagogue and church is important for a

person's life and enriches their life and letter of intent is a letter that is given to somebody that intends to make it that congregation in they are estate plans and it simply says we'd like to know if you would be willing to share with us what you have decided to do. have you named the synagogue in your life insurance policy or retirement funds or did you put the synagogue a percentage of money that will be generated out of your estate. so a letter of intent is a letter given to somebody who intends to leave a gift to an organization so it's concrete and simple and ease by this that way. >> and one of the things that the coaches do is they help the organization to be able to sustain it. the coaches we've hired for two years. and at the end of the two year period that is the end of 2012,

the institutions with the federations supported will be on their own. and hopefully coach will have trained and the work that people have done in the success people have had will inspire them enough to keep doing this. >> what is considered success in this context? >> i think for us, the success has been changing our culture from one that was about getting through each year and balancing our budget to being able to look forward to having an endowment fund that really could enrich our programs, it could enrich all kinds of activitys that we have taken part in the past but have not necessarily had the funds to keep up. and so i think it's changed how our membership is thinking about the future. there's a level of excitement

now that there hasn't been in the past. and we have had an endowment fund since the beginning of our congregation which is only 33 years ago. we're a relatively young congregation. but endowments to our funds were haphazard. we knew when they were coming for they were coming. and now there's a sense of, there's going to be some money coming into our endowment fund from our members. they've made the commitment. >> i'll take a quick break and come back and finish the conversation about living a legacy in the community. please join us in a moment here on mosaic.

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wonderful conversation about what it means to leave a legacy to an organization in your estate plans. we were talking about the differences among different organizations and how they really fashioned this issue for themselves. what are some issues that you feel are unique to the congregation yourself that you need to articulate and position? >> i think for us, there were two really driving forces. one is a recognition among our long time member that's when they came to san francisco, and many of our members come to san francisco from other places, there was really nowhere for them to feel welcome. there wasn't anywhere that they could feel at home. and so for them, i think that because we have been so much a big part of their life the last

30 some years, they want to feel that there's going to be our congestion for other people coming to san francisco wanting to find a jewish home for themselves that accepts them and enables them to enrich their lives in many, many ways. and i think that we have another interesting aspect. and that is the changing demographic. in other words, we now have about 150 children in our hebrew classes, which nobody would have ever predicted in the beginning of our time. and we feel those children are going up with us as an example of diversity and acceptance. and he will be the emissaries for us going out in the world and take what they've learned and out to the world with them when is a wonderful -- which is

a wonderful thing. >> it is another understanding what have legacy does mean. >> exactly. >> this is a two-year project. and we're in the beginning of the sec year. beyond the -- the second year. beyond the two years what is the commitment and is this going to be available to other groups in the future? >> it will be continued. we're going to continue this for the organizations that are part of this first core of legacies of institutions and our intention to continue to expand it and to encourage other organizations to part. we have not figured out the format. but we're staffing at the jewish fed rigs in order to be able -- federation in order to support the existing communities and knew institutions. >> and i'm -- new institutions. >> and i'm sure some folks are

listening to this conversation and said i would love no bring this to my priest, pastor or broader community of faith, can they call and get some consultation from you on how to just think about this issue and launch in their own communities? >> sure. give me a call (415)369-3620. -- that is 2860. >> it would help other communities to think through this issue for their own legacy. >> you have been very successful, one of the most successful organizations in the program. of the 16 teams, 14 set goals, they have met the goals for the first year. the other two, they're working on those goal and complete them a little late but complete them. and we estimate that in this

first year, we've raised in legacy commitments over $17 million. and in cash, some people have decided they're going to give their money now while they're alive so the institution can get the money in the endownment fund about, 1.7 million so about 10% of the money is coming in as cash gifts. >> and when people are making the decisions to leave this kind of of a legacy, what are some of the ways in which people are pressing their appreciation for the opportunity? >> know, it's so interesting. -- you know, it's so interesting. what i've heard the most is, i've just been waiting to be asked. so many of our member have been patrons of the arts and been familiar being asked with

donations for symphony and public radio. and i don't think it ever occurred to them that they had to think about that level commitment to their synagogue. so now they're saying, wow! this is great. i'm going to go and change my will and take care of this. it's been exciting. >> thank you very much for a wonderful conversation. thank you for joining us. have a wonderful day.