To leave money to charity in your will, add a clause that names the organization by its full legal name and states what it receives — a set dollar amount, a specific asset, a percentage of your estate, or whatever remains after other gifts are paid. That bequest qualifies for an unlimited federal estate tax charitable deduction, so every dollar going to a qualifying charity comes off your gross estate before the tax is calculated.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 26 Section 2055 The clause itself is short. Getting the details right is the work.
Pick the Type of Gift First
Before the wording, decide what kind of bequest you want to make. Four structures cover almost every situation:
- A specific bequest is a fixed dollar amount or an identified asset. “I give $50,000 to [Charity Name]” is the plain version. You can substitute a piece of real estate, shares of stock, or another named item of property.
- A residuary bequest gives the charity all or a share of what remains after debts, taxes, expenses, and any specific bequests are paid. Use this when you want family members funded first and the charity to take what’s left.
- A percentage bequest gives a stated percentage of the total or residuary estate. Because the amount scales with the estate’s value, it self-adjusts if your wealth changes between signing and death.
- A contingent bequest passes to the charity only if a condition is met, most often the death of a primary beneficiary before you. It works as a safety net.
You can combine these. A $25,000 specific bequest to one organization and 10 percent of the residuary estate to another is a normal setup. The layering matters because a large specific bequest paid off the top can shrink the residuary share of family members more than you intended.
Identify the Charity So It Can Actually Be Found
Sloppy identification is the easiest mistake to make and one of the hardest to fix once you’re gone. If your will says “the cancer society” and several organizations fit, your executor may need a court to sort out which one you meant. For every charity you name, put three things in the will:
- The full legal name the organization is registered under, not a nickname or abbreviation. “American Cancer Society, Inc.” is a different entity in a courtroom than “The Cancer Society.”
- The current mailing address, which also signals whether you mean a national body or a local chapter.
- The Employer Identification Number (EIN), the organization’s federal tax ID. Including it removes almost all ambiguity about which entity you intended.2Internal Revenue Service. Employer Identification Number
Then confirm the charity actually qualifies as tax-exempt, because that status is what unlocks the estate tax deduction. The IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool lets you check current status, review recent filings, and see whether an exemption has been revoked.3Internal Revenue Service. Tax Exempt Organization Search If the organization doesn’t appear there, ask it directly for documentation before naming it in your will.
Name a Backup Charity
Charities merge, rebrand, and occasionally close. If the one you named no longer exists at your death, a court can apply a doctrine called cy pres to redirect the gift to a similar organization, but the outcome may not be the one you would have chosen, and the process adds delay and legal fees. A short clause solves it: “If [Primary Charity] has ceased operations, I direct this gift to [Backup Charity] instead.”
Decide How the Money Can Be Used
An unrestricted gift lets the charity spend the money wherever it sees the greatest need. Most organizations prefer this, and if you trust the leadership, it’s the simpler choice. A restricted gift ties the funds to a specific program, scholarship, or project, and the charity is legally required to honor the restriction. The risk is that programs change or end; if the charity can no longer use the money as you directed, the funds may sit frozen until a court authorizes a new use.
Endowing the Gift
If you want the gift to keep giving indefinitely, direct that it be held as a permanent endowment. The charity invests the principal and spends only a portion of the returns each year. This requires explicit language in the will; without it, the charity can spend the whole gift immediately. Community foundations and larger nonprofits often have minimum thresholds to establish a named endowed fund, so ask the organization before finalizing the wording.
The Estate Tax Deduction and Where It Actually Helps
The full value of any bequest to a qualifying charity is deductible from your gross estate when the federal estate tax is calculated.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 26 Section 2055 There is no cap. An estate left entirely to charity owes no federal estate tax.
The federal estate tax exemption for 2026 is $15,000,000 per person.4Internal Revenue Service. What’s New — Estate and Gift Tax Estates under that already owe no federal estate tax, so the deduction moves the needle mainly for larger estates. Some states impose their own estate or inheritance taxes with much lower thresholds, and the charitable deduction can produce savings at the state level even when the federal tax isn’t in play.
One point that trips people up: a charitable bequest does not produce an income tax deduction. Income tax deductions apply to gifts made during your lifetime. A bequest gives you an estate tax deduction, which reduces the taxable value of the estate after death.
Retirement Accounts Are Usually the Better Vehicle
If you hold a traditional IRA or 401(k) and plan to give to both charity and family, the tax math almost always favors sending the retirement account to the charity and other assets to your heirs. Non-spouse heirs who inherit a traditional IRA generally must withdraw the balance within 10 years, and each dollar comes out as ordinary income.5Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics — Beneficiary Depending on the account size, that can push heirs into a higher bracket. A charity pays no income tax and receives the full balance.
Retirement account beneficiary designations are handled through the account custodian, not through your will. If you want the account to go to charity, update the beneficiary form with the custodian, and coordinate that choice with the will so the two documents don’t work against each other.
Donor-Advised Funds
If you’d like your heirs to have some say in where charitable dollars land, you can name a donor-advised fund as the bequest or retirement account beneficiary. The fund is held by a sponsoring charity, and your successors recommend grants to specific nonprofits over time. The bequest still qualifies for the estate tax charitable deduction.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 26 Section 2055 The trade-off is flexibility for family versus certainty that a specific organization gets the money.
Sign the Will Properly
A will has to be executed correctly to be valid. Most states require you to sign in the presence of two disinterested witnesses, meaning people who don’t inherit anything under the document. The witnesses then sign as well. Only one state requires notarization for validity, but in nearly every state you can attach a notarized self-proving affidavit, which speeds up probate by removing the need to track down witnesses later.
Working with an estate planning attorney is worth the fee. Charitable bequests interact with estate taxes, retirement account beneficiary designations, and state probate rules in ways that generic online forms handle poorly. An attorney will catch problems like a residuary clause that unintentionally wipes out a family member’s share, or restriction language so tight the charity can’t use the gift.
Review It Every Few Years
A will isn’t finished when you sign it. Review yours every few years and after any major life change — marriage, divorce, a birth, a significant shift in your finances, or the death of a beneficiary. Changes at the charity itself matter too. If the organization merges, renames, or closes and your will has no backup clause, update it before the problem becomes your executor’s.
Small changes can go into a codicil, a short amendment signed and witnessed with the same formality as the original. Larger revisions are cleaner as a new will. Either way, keep the signed original somewhere secure and make sure your executor knows where to find it.