LEGACY SOCIETY | FEBRUARY 2025
Benefits of a Donor Advised Fund- The Gift that Keeps Giving
A Donor Advised Fund (DAF) is like having your own foundation. The fund is invested for growth, which permits you to make annual gifts of income and principal while you are alive. When you pass away, your children may make recommendations for distributions from the fund for a number of years. You may also wish to designate the remaining funds in the Donor Advised Fund to our Foundation, helping us continue to enrich our communities through the arts and cultural resources provided by the institutions we support.
Click here to learn more about how to establish a Donor Advised Fund and its benefits to you as a donor and the cultural institutions you love.
Ruth Dillingham’s Passion for Folk Art Continues to Make an Impact through her Donor Advised Fund
Ruth was a life-long lover of the arts and an artist herself in everything she did. Ruth was born in Cleveland, Ohio, then bravely ventured west to Colorado University. She went back to school in her 50s for an MA with an Alcohol and Drug Abuse Councilor Certificate.
In addition to her docent work at the Museums she volunteered tutoring first graders with learning differences in Santa Fe. As an intelligent young person with undiagnosed learning disabilities (as they were called) she knew that the arts are a vital expression and contribution to oneself and the wider world. She was passionate about kids having access to arts and travel, hence, her love for international folk art.
Ruth was a great mother, loved New Mexico, chocolate, animals and nature, knew how to have fun with a genuine laugh while not afraid of tough subjects. She took Sinatra’s advice and “Did It Her Way.”
Fortunately, she had the foresight to establish a Donor Advised fund with instructions for her daughter, Gay Dillingham, to advise with her two sisters the distributions of the fund after her passing.
The Museum of International Folk Art was named as a beneficiary of the fund, so her generosity and foresight will continue to benefit that museum, as well as others in the Museum of New Mexico system, long into the future. Many community members and especially children, whom she loved, will enjoy and learn from the world’s folk art traditions and other art traditions as a result.
If you’d like to consider establishing and/ or giving through a Donor Advised Fund for tax advantages as well as to fulfill your philanthropic wishes, please contact Laura Sullivan, Director of Planned Giving, at laura@museumfoundation.org or 505.216.0829 or visit our website for more information or to download a free estate planning guide.
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