Want to Donate Real Estate to the Morg?

[ben]

"Let’s say you want to donate a piece of real estate to the church. Perhaps you might want to include one of the Church’s fundraising priorities in your will. Or maybe you want to endow a scholarship at Brigham Young University-Idaho. You need more than a tithing slip for gifts like these. You need LDS Philanthropies. Whatever your inclination, the Office of the Presiding Bishopric invites you to contact LDS Philanthropies, just as thousands of others have done confidentially over the past 35 years." (AD from BYU Alumni Magazine Fall 2006 Vol.19 Num 2).

I wonder what their definition of philanthropy is, especially considering that a large portion of donations (time and money) from Mormons go towards temples where the main focus is on dead people. I would think that the act of benevolence was best suited for being enacted on the living.

[peter_mary]

It is stunning to me the number of wealthy people (and probably less wealthy, too) who leave massive amounts of money to the Church upon their death. In my mind, it's sort of like leaving your estate to Microsoft, only more evil. :D

Still, I have personally known of estates that have left millions of dollars to the Church and/or BYU, in SOME cases leaving their children out of the will almost entirely. See, that makes perfect sense...piss your children off in this life, and they'll go live with their in-laws in the life to come! :neener:

[helemon]

In a related story
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/29/ap/national/mainD8LMH2982.shtml
Porter was the pastor at Hickman Community Church when he met and befriended Frank Craig, who had up to $4 million in stocks and real estate left to him after his brother died, according to another brother, N.J. Craig.

The elderly man asked Porter to help him build an agriculture-themed museum, and by 1999, the pastor had control of his finances, family members said. The trust was changed to replace Craig's two sisters with Porter as the successor trustee and Hickman Community Church as the new heir, they said.

Porter and Craig survived an accident in March 2002 when Porter's pickup veered off the road and struck an oak tree. The two crashed again in April 2004, and Craig died.