Bequests: Leaving a Legacy

A bequest provision signifies what is important to you and affirms the values you consider most essential. It helps ensure that the College will continue to be able to offer need-blind, no-loan financial aid to future generations of amazing students, as well as to be able to attract and retain top faculty and staff, and to offer exceptional academic and student life programming.

Make a Bequest to Bowdoin

A bequest is a gift anyone can afford. It offers many options for leaving a gift that is meaningful to you.

Here are four ways alumni, parents, friends, faculty, and staff may consider making a bequest to Bowdoin:

1. Specify an amount of money to leave to Bowdoin.
2. Set a percentage of your estate to leave to Bowdoin.
3. Identify specific gifts to Bowdoin such as: shares of stock; art; personal property; or, real estate.
4. Pass to Bowdoin the remainder (all or a percentage) of your estate after all debts, charges, and other bequests have been honored.

Review Bowdoin’s sample language and legal information for making a bequest to the College. If you are interested in adding a bequest for Bowdoin to your existing will or living trust, you may find Bowdoin’s sample codicil helpful to show your estate attorney.

Have You Made a Provision for Bowdoin?

If you have made a provision for Bowdoin in your estate plans, please inform us of your intentions by using our secure web-based portal to document your provision and submit it on line to the Office of Gift Planning. Alternatively, you can complete our Documenting your Provision for Bowdoin form and email it to giftplanning@bowdoin.edu. Sharing information about your plans for Bowdoin ensures that your wishes are understood by the College. You will be welcomed into the Bowdoin Pines Society.

Having Trouble Getting Started with Your Estate Planning?

Do you need to draft your first will or update your revocable living trust? We’ve created a worksheet to help you. Need more help? Download our Memoir Maker to capture your values, hopes, and dreams for the future to get inspired about what matters most to you. And, be sure to watch our Estate Planning webinar for more information about putting a comprehensive plan in place.