Estate planning expands legacy, opportunity
The UMKC Foundation benefits from donors who take the long view of charitable giving.
Creating an endowed gift is an opportunity to establish a personal legacy that will support research, expand students’ opportunities, ensure that UMKC has resources to support students’ educational needs, as well as provide resources that go beyond tuition and books.
Faculty member Linda E. Mitchell, Ph.D., professor emerita of history, included UMKC in her estate planning. Mitchell, the former Martha Jane Phillips Starr Missouri Distinguished Endowed Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at UMKC, set up an endowment fund for the Gay and Lesbian Archives of Mid-America (GLAMA).
Mitchell’s academic career has focused on women’s, gender and sexuality studies. Because of her mentoring of students in these areas, she was familiar with GLAMA’s mission to collect, preserve and make accessible materials that are part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities’ history in the Kansas City region. This awareness encouraged her planned gift.
“I feel that I have an obligation to make our world better. My choice, in addition to being an educator myself, is to do what I can to provide financial support for the education of people who all too frequently experience barricades that prevent them from achieving the education they desire and deserve.”
Todd Newton, BA ’88, was inspired by his mother, a college professor who helped him as much as she could but could not cover the expense of his college education. Newton’s understanding of the pressure that student loans can bring led him to establish a scholarship for political science students through a planned gift.
Chancellor Mauli Agrawal and his wife, Sue, endowed the Dr. Raj Bala Agrawal Care Center with a donation in memory of his mother, in response to a report that found nearly a third of UMKC undergraduate students experienced food insecurity. The expanded services provide more and fresher choices for students in need. In addition, the Roo Pantry will move from Troost Avenue to the Care Center on the first floor of the Student Union, to better serve students, and enable faculty and staff to more easily guide them there.
“We feel deeply that our students should not suffer due to lack of food and other basic needs,” Chancellor Agrawal said. “Our goal at UMKC is to help students stay enrolled and – ultimately — graduate.”
More information on planned giving is available on our site, or contact Shelly Doucet, major gift officer UMKC Foundation at doucets@umkcfoundation.org.