Gift Planning

Explore the potential of making a planned gift to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, contributing to the future of innovation and groundbreaking design. By supporting the next generation of architects, urban planners, landscape architects, real estate experts, and designers, you can play a pivotal role in shaping a sustainable and well-designed future.

Your support ensures that creative minds have the resources they need to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges with vision and creativity, inspiring generations to come.

Contact our office today and ensure your legacy is one of transformative impact and lasting inspiration.

Types of planned gifts

Leave a specific amount or percentage of your estate or its remainder to the GSD. These gifts are flexible, should your circumstances change, and a gift of any amount supports the GSD’s future.

Naming the GSD as a beneficiary of a life insurance policy or retirement plan, such as a 401(k) or IRA, is an easy, tax-efficient way to support our mission. Those 70 1/2 and older can also make qualified charitable distributions from an IRA during their lifetime. These tax-free gifts count toward the required minimum distribution, for donors 73 and older.

Establish a charitable gift annuity or charitable remainder trust to secure income for yourself or a loved one for life. The remainder of your gift benefits GSD initiative(s) you designate. Contact us to learn whether an annuity or trust may be right for you.

Support the GSD for a fixed number of years and transfer assets to children or other heirs, or retain them for yourself, while avoiding income and/or estate taxes.

A Harvard Donor Advised Fund allows you to support the GSD, other Harvard initiatives, and additional charities over time while receiving an immediate tax deduction.

Convert assets like real estate, private company stock, business interests, or art to a meaningful gift to support the future of design education.

Benefits of Gift Planning

Making provisions for future gifts to the GSD through your will or estate plan is a meaningful way to build a legacy and make a lasting difference—and assets remain yours during your lifetime. These gifts, as well as beneficiary designations, can be changed should your circumstances change.

For life income gifts, lead trusts, and donor advised funds, your assets are invested in the Harvard endowment or through TIAA Kaspick, depending on the type of gift, for no separate fee, making your gift go even further. These types of gifts, as well as gifts of complex assets, often provide many tax advantages during your lifetime and can also be a smart part of estate planning for many donors.

Many donors choose not to specify a purpose for their planned gifts, including bequests, allowing the GSD to use their gift where it is needed most. If you prefer to direct your gift to a specific purpose, our team can help you or your attorney craft a plan that reflects your wishes.

Your Planned Gift

By establishing a planned gift or including the GSD in your will or estate plan, you become part of a distinguished group of design thinkers who maintain a lasting connection with the school through the H. Langford Warren community of planned giving donors.

H. Langford Warren (1857–1917) was an exemplary leader and visionary who founded the School of Architecture at Harvard and served as its first Chair. By joining science and fine arts within the study of architecture and fostering the nascent field of landscape architecture, he established a model of cross-disciplinary collaboration that is still a hallmark of the GSD.