Charitable Lead Trusts

How it Works

  1. You transfer cash, securities, or other property to a trust.  You receive a gift tax deduction.
  2. During its terms, the trust pays a fixed amount each year to Cooper Union.
  3. When the trust ends, its remaining principal passes to your family or other heirs you name.  Trust growth passes to them tax-free.

This intergenerational wealth-transfer tool enables you to provide for your heirs – and for The Cooper Union – while sharply reducing gift and estate taxes.  Because The Cooper Union benefits first, the trust assets can go to your heirs later at a reduced gift and estate tax cost. 

Your benefits:

  • Federal gift and estate-tax deductions for the value of annual trust payments to The Cooper Union may enable you to transfer to your heirs a larger estate after tax than would otherwise be possible.
  • Any appreciation in the assets during the term of the trust, while subject to capital gains tax, is not subject to gift or estate tax at the trust’s termination. 
  • The amount and term of the payments to The Cooper Union can be set so as to reduce or even eliminate transfer taxes due when the principal reverts to your heirs.

For more information about charitable lead trusts, please contact Donna Lippman, Director of Planned Giving, at (212) 353-4172 or dlippman@cooper.edu.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.