It’s wonderful to leave your family and community with a lasting monument to your dedication and generosity towards animals by creating a legacy for animals.

However, difficult finance and estate decisions require detailed knowledge in many areas, including accounting, finance, law, insurance, taxes, investments and charitable planning. 

To help you navigate these intricacies, In Defense of Animals is sponsoring a series of free Zoom workshops this spring that cover these important topics. We invite you to attend so you can learn how to make wiser, more fully informed decisions about your financial future — dates and times are listed below.

The mission of these workshops is to provide the resources you need to make confident financial, estate and charitable decisions.

What you will learn:

• How you should allocate your investment assets and preserve your wealth.
• What the advantages and disadvantages of a living trust are.
• What the practical low cost ways to avoid probate are.
• How much income tax your estate is going to pay.
• What the best way to leave your IRA, 401(K) or other retirement assets to your heirs or to a charity is.

Creating a Legacy Gift in your will is an excellent way to ensure that your estate will go on to support animal rescue and advocacy for many years to come!

In "It's Your Money," the presenters teach you to identify financial sales people; understand the financial planning process (net worth, budget, goals and objectives, projection, investments); equity and fixed income investing; the importance of a professional advisor being a fiduciary; and how a charitable gift annuity is different than a commercial annuity. They also discuss scams including those involving charities, and address one of the biggest fears for seniors: running out of money. Overall, the series helps you assess your personal situation and prepare for the future.

In "It's Your Estate," the presenters teach the following topics: wills, probate, durable powers, advanced health care directives and establishing a living trust. The presenters also explain the possible value of charitable gift annuities and charitable remainder trusts.

You are welcome to attend the entire series or the individual sessions of your choice. To keep everyone safe and healthy, these sessions will be offered through Zoom webinars. You can register for one or both of the series and attend any or all of the sessions for that series.

How to Register

When you register, please make sure you scroll to the bottom of the form, it may ask if you are a robot. Click that you are not a robot, if asked, and then click REGISTER. We look forward to having you virtually attend as many of these sessions as possible.

Here are the links for both series:

Register for It's Your Money!

Register for It's Your Estate!

After you register, you will receive a confirmation and a link. We will also send you a reminder email the day before each session. The weekly “handout” materials will be available here. Look at the Fall 2020 series tab to get the weekly material.

Given that everyone’s time is critical, these sessions will all be recorded and the videos will be available about a week after each session here.

Please do not share your series link with anyone else, as only one person can use that link. If you share the link and they log in before you, you will not be able to get in. However, please feel free to invite others to register! For more information, contact Nicole Otoupalik at (480) 474-4783 or nicole@idausa.org.

Your Legacy Gift will leave an imprint on the hearts and lives of the animals who so desperately need us. It will rescue dogs and cats from the Asian meat trade, provide care and resources for animals of the rural south at our Hope Animal Sanctuary, and it will protect wildlife and their habitats all around the world.

We hope to see you there!