OUR COMMUNITY
56 | JULY 14 • 2022
T
he largest wealth trans-
fer in history is expect-
ed to take place over
the next two decades, when
close to $70 trillion is estimat-
ed to be inherited as the Silent
(1928-1945) and Baby Boomer
(1946-1964) generations pass
away.
In an effort to future-proof
their respective communities,
the Jewish communities of
Ann Arbor and Windsor
have recently joined LIFE &
LEGACY, an initiative of the
Massachusetts-based Harold
Grinspoon Foundation, which
trains and incentivizes Jewish
organizations to inculcate a
culture of afterlife giving and,
in turn, grow their communal
endowments for the long term.
“Younger generations may
not have the same resources as
their parents and grandparents
due to rising student debt and
other financial constraints,”
says Arlene Schiff, national
director of LIFE & LEGACY.
“If we are to protect Jewish
communities today, we need
to capture some of the wealth
Baby Boomers have to support
organizations they value and to
ensure they continue to exist.”
LIFE & LEGACY offers
a multi-year curriculum to
750 Jewish organizations
throughout North America,
and provides expert-led
training for community
volunteers, equipping them
with the tools to speak to
their peers about leaving part
of their estate to local Jewish
charities upon their passing.
Since its inception in
2012, LIFE & LEGACY has
cultivated 24,000 donors, who
have made more than 34,000
afterlife legacy commitments
to Jewish organizations at a
value exceeding $1.3 billion. To
date, $150 million has already
been placed in organizational
endowments.
Despite being smaller
communities, both Ann Arbor
and Windsor successfully
recruited almost all their
local Jewish organizations
to participate in LIFE &
LEGACY, alongside a
dedicated team of volunteers
from each entity.
“This culture change is
what attracted me to the
program,” says Eileen Freed,
executive director of the
Jewish Federation of Greater
Ann Arbor. “It is the whole
idea of really developing a
culture of legacy
giving within
each organization
and across the
community.” As
Ann Arbor joined
the program at
the height of
the pandemic in 2020, its
volunteers conducted virtual
legacy conversations with
community members about
their afterlife philanthropic
goals, resulting in 11 local
Jewish organizations receiving
a total of 382 letters of intent
from 227 donors to date —
and they have just started.
While both the Canadian
Jewish communities of
Windsor and London were
too small to qualify for LIFE
& LEGACY on their own,
they were accepted into the
program as one combined
entity.
“This partnership made a
lot of sense because we are
experiencing the same shift
in demographic trends,”
says Richie Kamen, director
of development at the
Windsor Jewish
Federation. “We
are working to
secure the future
of valued Jewish
organizations
before it is too
late.”
Freed says, “What we
learned through LIFE &
LEGACY is that this is not just
for the biggest donors. This
is for everybody, including
loyal donors who may have
more wealth when they pass
away than they do right now.
What I love about
this initiative
is that it allows
everyone in our
community to be
a philanthropist.”
Attorney Mara
Growing
Generational
Wealth
Ann Arbor and Windsor change their
culture of afterlife giving through
the LIFE & LEGACY Program.
Eileen
Freed
Richie
Kamen
DAN BROTMAN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Mara Kent