Sally A. Davoren has joined the Carnegie Museums’ Development Department as director of gift planning. She is responsible for a comprehensive program to generate planned gifts for our four museums.
Planned gifts include deferred gifts, such as bequests, and life income gifts, such as charitable gift annuities or charitable remainder trusts. Any gift in which tax or legal considerations determine which asset to give, or how to structure the gift, is also a planned gift. Unless the donor directs otherwise, planned gifts to Carnegie Institute are deposited in the endowment, rather than in annual operating funds.
Dolores Ellenberg, vice president of Development, sees planned giving as a vital component of our total development effort. “A dynamic, on-going planned giving program ensures the future of the museums by helping to build the endowment,” she says.
Davoren, an attorney, comes to the museums from 16 years in the private practice of law, specializing in the areas of estate planning and administration, legal planning for businesses, and transportation regulatory law. In describing her goals for the planned giving program, Davoren says, “My legal background enables me to work with individuals and their advisors to fashion planned gifts that fit donors’ financial and estate plans, and we will offer a full range of planned gift options. Planned giving should not, however, be regarded as something that is extremely complicated or only for the wealthy. Bequests are the cornerstone of any planned giving program, and anyone can provide permanent support for the museums through a bequest to Carnegie Institute. I hope that all of our supporters will seriously consider including in their financial or estate plans suitable planned gifts to benefit the museums.”
A Pittsburgh native, Davoren received her bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Chatham College, and her Juris Doctor degree from the Duquesne University School of Law. She is a member of the Pittsburgh Planned Giving Council, the Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Sections of the American, Pennsylvania, and Allegheny County Bar Associations, and the Allegheny County bar association’s Tax Exempt Charitable Organizations Section.
As an executive with Mellon Bank from 1969 until 1987, G. Christian Lantzsch was heavily involved in the cultural life of Pittsburgh. He served as the treasurer of The Pittsburgh Symphony Society from 1970 to 1983, and as its president from 1983 to 1985. From 1979 until 1987, in addition to his responsibilities as Mellon Bank’s chief financial officer, Lantzsch served as chairman of the bank’s corporate art collection, traveling throughout the world to obtain suitable works for the collection.
These experiences convinced Lantzsch that organizations like museums, the symphony and the opera are so essential to the life of the community that they deserve permanent support. When Lantzsch left Duquesne Light Company’s board of directors after 22 years, he acted upon this belief by using a portion of the death benefit that he received through Duquesne Light’s Charitable Giving Program to benefit the Carnegie Museum of Art.
Under the terms of Lantzsch’s Charitable Giving Program agreement with Duquesne Light, upon his death, a permanent fund will be established with the Pittsburgh Foundation. Duquesne Light will provide the money for this fund. One quarter of the annual earnings from the fund will be given to the Carnegie Museum of Art Acquisitions Endowment, one half will be split between two other charities, and the remaining quarter will be added to the principal of the fund.
Lantzsch’s gift is structured so that the amount distributed to the Museum of Art each year will be roughly equivalent to the donor’s lifetime annual gift to Carnegie Institute, adjusted for inflation. Richard Armstrong, The Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Museum of Art, said in thanking Lantzsch for his gift, “Creative combinations of corporate and private patronage such as this have made the Carnegie Museum of Art the singular institution it is today, and will guarantee its future.”
Charitable giving programs like that of Duquesne Light allow corporate directors to designate one or more nonprofit organizations to receive gifts from the sponsoring company when they die or retire. The gifts are frequently funded by the proceeds of life insurance on the directors purchased by the corporations. The first corporate charitable giving program was established for PPG Industries in 1988, and more than 100 corporations now have such programs.
If you have designated Carnegie Institute or one of our museums a beneficiary of death benefits received through a corporate charitable giving program, or of any other gift of life insurance, we encourage you to let us know this, so that we can thank you. To inform us of such a gift, or to discuss how to make a planned gift to Carnegie Institute, call Sally Davoren, director of gift planning, at (412) 762-4171.