March 17, 2005 | Read Time: 3 minutes
As President Bush pushes for changes in the Social Security system, some retired people are encouraging affluent elderly people to donate their benefit checks to charity.
Jerry Conover, 71, a lawyer in Denver, decided to start donating his own Social Security checks to charity in 2002 and is now promoting the idea to others through the Hope for Generations Fund, administered by the Denver Foundation. The fund received $100,000 last year from more than 45 people who contributed all or some of the money they received from Social Security, an increase of $40,000 over 2003, when the fund opened.
“The wonderful entitlement I was receiving I didn’t need, and it seemed some poor kids could use it more,” says Mr. Conover. He says he and the foundation’s Board of Trustees were not trying to make a political statement by creating the fund, but, he says, “we saw an inequity in entitlements for seniors versus entitlements for youths.”
Money donated to Hope for Generations goes mostly to programs that benefit youngsters. Last year’s grants included $20,000 each to the Anchor Center for Blind Children, which provides support for children with impaired vision; Colorado Bright Beginnings, to assist new mothers in caring for their children; Invest in Kids, which seeks to improve the health and well-being of newborns; and Kids in Need of Dentistry, which provides dental care to uninsured children.
Idea Spreads
With the Hope for Generations Fund as their model, Jay and Linda Sandrich, a Beverly Hills, Calif., couple who worked in the television industry, have decided to use their monthly Social Security checks to help retired people with low incomes.
The couple is giving everything they receive annually from Social Security, totaling several thousand dollars per month, to the Secure Seniors Fund, a new program at the California Community Foundation that raises money for charities that serve older people.
Says Mr. Sandrich, who is 73: “We wanted the money to go to what Social Security was originally designed to support.” He says many older Americans face increased expenses associated with aging and a decrease in guaranteed benefits from pension plans.
The California Community Foundation says it hopes the Secure Seniors Fund will be financed primarily by people like the Sandriches who donate unneeded Social Security checks. Nonprofit organizations that provide health care, housing, and other help to elderly adults will be eligible to receive grants through the fund; no money will be given directly to individuals.
Antonia Hernández, chief executive officer of the California Community Foundation, says the fund is just starting to send out solicitations, but initial responses have shown substantial interest among donors to the foundation.
Tapping Retired Workers
Another California organization last month began to solicit donated Social Security checks. Paul Merage, who with his brother received $2.6-billion when they sold Chef America, the company they founded, has started a charity that will send donated Social Security money to the Early Childhood Development Fund, administered by the Orange County Community Foundation. The fund hopes to make grants of up to $25,000 apiece to charities that serve young people.
Mr. Merage’s charity, Children First: A Merage Foundation, in Newport Beach, Calif., also wants to help retired people find part-time jobs at charities that work with young children. “The number of retirees is growing,” says Marshall Kaplan, executive director of Children First. “How do you make use of them?”
Mr. Kaplan says he hopes that the charity will raise $300,000 in Social Security checks this year, and $700,000 by 2007.
“There’s no limit to what we can do,” he says. “We hope to learn how to convert baby boomers into civic assets.”
