A Legacy That Supports Children Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Planned giving, such as bequests, charitable gift annuities, retirement account gifts, and more, offers donors a powerful way to sustain Catholic Charities of New York’s vital youth services while achieving tax-smart estate planning goals. Tools like FreeWill and MyCatholicWill empower individuals to include Catholic Charities of New York in their wills in as little as 20 minutes.

How Your Legacy Supports Youth Programs

• After‑school & day‑off programs: These provide academic support, arts, sports, and recreational programming for over 46,000 youth across the city.
• Head Start & daycare: High‑quality early education helps children ages 3–5 develop school‑readiness and emotional, and social skills.
• Community centers & sports programs: Located in Harlem, Staten Island, the Lower East Side and beyond, these offer safe spaces for exercise, mentorship, teamwork, and social growth.
• Foster care, adoption, mother‑child residences, counseling: These compassionate services support families in crisis, stabilize placements, and foster emotional well‑being.
• Annual impact: Catholic Charities of New York helps place nearly 4,000 children in foster care, facilitates about 197 adoptions each year, serves over 4,100 in daycare, and conservatively nurtures over 46,000 youth through after-school and sports programming.

Why Planned Giving Matters for Youth Support

1. Sustains long‑term stability: Unlike government contracts, which can fluctuate year to year, planned giving provides dependable, mission‑enduring funding.
2. Flexibility to designate impact: Donors can direct their gift specifically to youth initiatives, be it after‑school programs, foster care, or sports-based mentorship.
3. Mutual benefit: Methods such as charitable gift annuities offer income for life with reduced taxable estate, benefiting both donor and charity.
4. User-friendly planning tools: Platforms like FreeWill and MyCatholicWill simplify legacy gifts, without needing legal expertise, making estate planning easy and accessible.

Donor Options: Your Path to Making a Difference

• Bequests via will or trust allow you to assign a gift after you pass, with minimal upfront obligation.
• Charitable Gift Annuities (CGA): For donors aged 65+, a cash or property gift of $10,000 or more can secure a fixed income stream with lifetime payments and ultimately support youth programs.
• Beneficiary designations: You can designate Catholic Charities of New York as a beneficiary of retirement accounts or donor-advised funds, simple, effective, and tax-efficient.

Why It Matters: Youth Programs and Their Transformative Effects

Programs like Summer Youth Employment (SYEP) expose young people to meaningful internships, matching them with opportunities in healthcare clinics, police precincts, insurance agencies, and more. These experiences help confirm career paths, build confidence, and open future possibilities. Catholic Charities of New York explicitly acknowledges that donor support makes these programming possibilities real.

Planned giving enables supporters to build a legacy that directly empowers youth through education, opportunity, and care, from Head Start classrooms to mentorship through sports, from foster placements to employment readiness. Supporters’ thoughtful generosity ensures that Catholic Charities of New York can continue serving tens of thousands of children and young people across New York.

Interested in learning more or getting involved?

Please visit CatholicCharitiesNY.giftplans.org or contact Emily Chau, Director of Planned Giving, at Emily.Chau@CatholicCharitiesNY.org or (646) 794‑2018 for personalized support.

Together, your legacy can become tomorrow’s opportunity.