Life insurance can be a simple and flexible approach to make a significant contribution to your favorite charity

A Life insurance policy is an excellent tool for charitable giving. Not only does it allow you to make a substantial donation to charity at no cost to you, but you may also benefit from tax rules that apply to gifts of life insurance.

With the guidance and support of your favorite charity and the approval of your legal and/or tax advisors, along with the support of your family, you can create something very exclusive that is reserved for a select group of eligible individuals.

It can be a life insurance policy that has provided its original purpose, some examples are: a spouse who has past away and no longer needs it, a grown child who is financially independent or to protect a business that no longer exists. It can also be a new policy purchased specifically to benefit your favorite charity; a gift of life insurance can enable you to leave a much greater gift to your favorite charity than may have been possible during your lifetime.

There are at least four different ways in which you can structure a gift of life insurance to your favorite charity:

1. You can make your favorite charity a beneficiary of an existing life insurance policy. Upon your passing, the full face value amount of the policy will go to your favorite charity. Although the proceeds from the policy will be included in your gross estate, the full amount received by your favorite charity may be deductible as a charitable deduction. To make your favorite charity a beneficiary of an existing life insurance policy, you can simply request a beneficiary designation form from your employer or insurance company. Most forms require the following information:

• Your favorite charity full legal name:

• Your favorite charity permanent mailing address:

• Your favorite charity federal tax identification number:

• Your relationship to the beneficiary: Charity

2. You can make your favorite charity the owner and beneficiary of an existing paid-up life insurance policy. By doing so, you may be able to deduct an amount equal to the fair market value of the policy, or your cost basis, whichever is less. Since your favorite charity becomes the owner of the policy, the proceeds will not be included in your estate for tax purposes.

3. You can make your favorite charity the owner and beneficiary of a policy on which you are still paying premiums. You may be able to deduct an amount equal to the approximate cash value of the policy or the policy's cost basis, whichever is less, in the year in which you give the gift. You may also be able to deduct any future premium payments, and the proceeds will not be included in your estate for tax purposes.

4. You can purchase a new policy and make your favorite charity the owner and beneficiary. Because your favorite charity is the owner, you may be able to deduct premium payments as charitable contributions for as long as the premiums are paid, Subject to state limitations. In addition, the proceeds will not be included in your estate for tax purposes.

Life insurance is a flexible charitable giving tool that can be utilized to suit your individual financial needs while also substantially supporting your favorite charity's programs.

If you are thinking about a donation of life insurance to a charity, I encourage you to consult with your legal advisor and/ or tax advisor to help you decide on the best approach for you. It is important to note that some states don't consider a charity to have insurable interest in its donors lives.

Boaz Arbel is the General Manager at Arbel Life, LLC, a New York based company that specializes in the high net worth senior market. To obtain further information about Life insurance Premium Finance, Life Settlement and to read additional articles about these subjects please visit the website:

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While military-life is a choice for many, it is still a stressful life. Presently there are more than 350,000 active-deployed service members around the world in the five branches (Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard) of the U.S. military. It is important for U.S. citizens to recognize these individuals' sacrifice through support whether as an act of duty, an expression of patriotism or other individual reason.

Care packages are a great way to support these service members if individuals have the time and the money to do so; but care packages do not last all year long and may be too expensive for individuals on a budget. The minimum amount of money to send a care package is generally $25.With these things in mind, the magazine-donation program Subscriptions for Soldiers was created. The purpose of the program is to provide individuals with the opportunity to send service members an inexpensive morale-boosting gift that lasts all year.

For just $10 per subscription, the donation program is affordable and easy. Donors visit and donate magazine subscriptions to a service member they know or are paired anonymously with a service member through the database of requests.

The program has already gathered thousands of requests from active-deployed service members through a separate website. Service members request up to three favorite magazines from 30 magazine titles like Guns & Ammo magazine, muscle & Fitness magazine, Shape magazine and Star magazine at no cost to them.

For active duty service members, something as simple as receiving a monthly magazine makes a difference by boosting morale in stressful times throughout the year. Magazines are an easy way for service members to stay up-to-date and connected with news, information and trends happening at home. As reported in a press release, many service members have already responded enthusiastically to the program describing magazines as a sought-after luxury.

It is important for active-deployed service members to have a consistent connection with life back in the States and there is no better way to them to receive that connection than from a citizen extending support.

For more information on how to donate a subscription, visit

Felicity Grant is a free-lance writer in Atlanta.

In the light of our proud soldiers that are stationed throughout the world to protect our freedoms, a strategy has been put in place for them to text message home. Our soldiers find themselves having a lack of communications with friends and family here in the United States. They have a right to be able to share with their loved ones, what they choose to share on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. As a matter of fact speaking from personal experience it is darn right impossible to stay in contact with everyone monthly let alone weekly.

As of right now our Troops have 3 typical ways of communication with us: phone calls, bulk e-mails, and letters. Typically, the soldiers are looking to call their family members but not their friends. Friends usually get the emails and the letters. However, this is not a daily occurrence you might get a phone call once every 3 -5 days, or an email or letter once a month. Following the war and our efforts to help our troops it has been noticed that there has been an evolving effort to donate computers to soldier sites and bases.

The idea for soldiers to be able to text message our cell phones from any computer in the world that has internet access, is a proactive form of communication. The program is simple and quick for our troops to use. It allows troops to upload cell phone numbers to a secure database and then take those cell phone numbers and break them down into groups (i.e friends 1, family, and friends 2...). Once they are broken down into groups they are free to send out as many messages as they want. They may chose to send messages to a whole group, their whole phone list, or individual numbers. The convenience of this service is unbelievable because now it will actually feel like that soldier is involved of our daily lives. We could be driving down the street and receive a text message. As a matter of fact we could receive a text message in the morning, afternoon, and night.

This service was built to cater to the troops, families, and friends. Someone can sign any person in the Armed Forces up for this program, all you have to do is give them their user name and password and their service will be up and running. Though the service is not free we will be donating $1.99 to 3 different Non-For-Profit organizations a month. Most likely one (1) of our donations will go to the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the other two will be for supporting our active troops.

To learn more about the service please visit our website at Please feel free to call us about this service we would love to answer your questions.

We sell wind chimes on our site, but wind chimes as a topic for a twice-a-week blogging seems like overkill, even to us. I am an enthusiast, but how much is there to say about wind chimes? Or who wants to read it?

Every once in a while we post an article on wind chimes, our last one was about indoor wind chimes and collectibility. (You can use the search bar to see if we've posted on something you'd like to read about.) We plan to have wind chime articles every 1-2 months. The rest of the time, it's free software.

Enter Free Software...

Free software is usually Open Source Software, Donationware or Freeware that you either download from the internet or use on the web.

I try to recommend programs that are good and bug-free, that fill a need, are recently released (though we can't forget the free software classics) and give you links to reputable sites to download from. I have a lot of free software on my system, and a lot of programs that are in beta versions (meaning they're almost ready to be released but not yet). It's gratifying to report a bug and help out the developers.

...and the Internet

Becoming very popular are applications on the web. I watch for these and like to report on them because Windows, Mac OS X and Linux users can all benefit from these programs. Many of these applications have monthly fees, but most offer a small free account or a 30-day "try before you buy" plan that lets you get familiar with the app and see if it's for you.

What is Talked About

Usually the program is discussed in terms of what it accomplishes and special features it encompasses. Certain features are most desirable, such as a download of your bank statement into an accounting program, and I make sure tools like that are included. I comment on the installation, the interface and include screen shots when appropriate. I discuss if any problems occurred in the setup or testing, and present the programs in an upbeat, positive manner.

I want you to try it because it might make your life easier or save you some money. For example, Microsoft Office vs. Open O - you save well over $100 right there! Most often discussed are utilities, productivity, and fun small programs. But make no mistake, we're open to all kinds of software here!

The "Bad Rap" Free Software Gets

Supposedly adware and spyware are distributed with free software programs. It is theorized that the makers of the free software include it to offset the cost of distributing it for free.

Chances are you have software to combat adware and spyware and won't be affected if this is true. I go by the look of a site, if they've been around a long time and if they advertise "no adware! no spyware!". There are many responsible, honorable businesses circulating free software and they know passing along problems is no way to get a visitor back.

creme de blog

windchimes for sound! windchimes for quality!

free software for all!

In a bid to do this, Impact Nations sets off on a mission to reach out to the poor, widow, orphan and the destitute with humane virtues like love, compassion and a message of hope. The noble hearts associated with the mission in the Impact Nations team takes a journey to help the desperate people in developing countries like Philippines, Zambia and India for varied problems like unclean drinking water, unavailability of proper medical facility, social dejection for widows, etc.

While the short-term trips conducted by Impact Nations are called "Journeys of Compassion", long-term mission is called "Projects". The year 2007 ended on a successful note with the 'Journeys of Compassion' conducting medical aid camps in India, Mexico and the Philippines. Thrilled with the response, the Impact Nations team has scheduled many such short-term trips to India, Philippines, Guatemala, Zambia and Peru in the year 2008.

The 'Projects' undertaken by Impact Nations include providing clean water to villages through household water filters in Philippines and India, empowering widows in India through sewing micro-enterprise, and availing medical care to the underprivileged in Zambia. Besides successfully steering the project for 'Clean Drinking Water' in aid of the people of the Typhoon Fengshen hit, Mindanao Island in the Philippines, Impact Nations has made plans to establish schools and ongoing medical aid facilities in a number of communities in India.

Impact Nations however, emphasizes on the need to make people aware of the conditions of fellow humans in distress and join the movement in saving them from pain, agony and death. More than a movement, it is a mission of Hope, compassion and power to 'unite' - to work together for lasting change. One such venture with the aid of several generous hearts has opened up doors of opportunity and given social empowerment to 80 widows in a small village in Andhra Pradesh, India who successfully completed training in sewing and were offered a sewing machine each.

Impact Nations makes a dedicated endeavor to address newer tribulations in third world nations. Just as it was providing medical aid in Zambia, Impact Nations felt there is ardent need to address the water issues through filters and hand-drilled wells. Moreover, it has also chalked out plans to carry out elaborate measures to address Zambia's medical issues (especially malaria and AIDS treatment, to prevent the transfer of the HIV virus to infants at childbirth), and agricultural issues as well.

Impact Nations is touched with the positive response people all over the globe have offered for their 'less' fortunate keens in 'that part of the world' and hope to accomplish many more mission of '

Hope, Compassion and Dignity'.

What does a child need-----a good home, proper food, good education and other facilities which will lead to all round development? But how many children, especially in a developing country get such facilities. The percentages of such fortunate ones are very less especially in a developing country like India.

Children are the future of any nation. And every state administration must try to develop certain programs for child support system. The children coming from not so sound economic background needs to be supported. They are the ones who are in need of child support mechanism that every civilized society needs to develop so that all round welfare of the society keeps on happening.

Every other day some or other Indian news channel exposes and sometimes the foreign media also highlights the truth about the real condition of the poor children who have to start working for living. If you just pay careful attention at some traffic light stops in Delhi you can see small kids trying to sell flowers, pens, magazines, books, handkerchiefs and other small things. Sometimes we think that lets help them and buy something from them and as the things would come cheap so we will also be striking a good deal. But one needs to really ask, are we really helping them in some substantial way? If one wants to help such poor children then one needs to join in the charitable institutions that are to develop child support systems which aim to give free education to these deprived kids laboring for sustenance.

Education is the key that will unlock many prospective doors for the future. Every child should have access to education whether he or she has the ability to give the fees for the school. Such systems and child development programs need to be developed which will enable even the children of the poor to decide a future for them selves instead of just being driven by the circumstances.

Guru Nanak Garib Niwaj Education Society is a charitable institution set up by the Baba Amar Singhji to work towards providing free education to the children of the poor. He has set up a school in Delhi where the street children who otherwise would have been working or begging for sustenance are provided free education, books, clothes, transportation facility and vocational training, so that they too can lead a dignified life.

If you too want bring in happiness in the life of some unfortunate kids, then instead of buying things from the kids peddling stuffs make some donation to organizations like Guru Nanak Garib Niwaj Education Society, which are working for developing child support programs.

Sanjeev Jha is a researcher and writer for Child development. He also provides valuable information about Charity, Education Society, Social Service for Child Support and many more topics.

When you are an organization or individual in need of a charitable donation, how do you go about finding what you need? After all, there are so many different companies and foundations out there that issue grants to people, depending upon their goals, that is can tough to know where to submit a proposal. Here are some tips to make the process of searching easier:

1. Go online: Hitting up the Internet for information is a great way to find out just about anything these days, and getting a grant is no exception. Web sites like nozasearch list more than a million different charitable foundations that provide money to grant-seekers. Searching the nozasearch database can not only give you insight into who is giving money and what their process it, but you can also get valuable tax information as well. The site features the public tax records of a number of great foundations that issue grants because these records are a matter of public record. These numbers can also assist you in formulating your approach, as it is a bit easier to do when you do know what a charitable foundation has done in the past. Looking at the history of giving can give you insight into how often and how much the foundation contributes to organizations or individuals in your particular field.

2. Ask around: If you know of anyone who has received a grant in the past, ask him or her where they received their funding and what the process entailed. In some cases, they may be able to give you the contact name or number they used to help you get your foot in the door. Ask them for advice in your approach and find out how stringent the acceptance process was. For example, if they were turned down multiple times or required to go through a difficult acceptable process, you can either prepare yourself to endure the effort or decide that ultimately, you may want to seek out a foundation that specializes in working with people who have little to no experience in seeking out grants.

3. Purchase a resource book: Visit your local book retailer and search for a resource book on charitable foundations. Some books will provide you with information on submitting a proposal as well as contact names, numbers, Web sites, address and more. You can then find charitable donations that fall in your category and approach them first. Moreover, you will have a list at your fingertips that you can refer back to at any time.

All of these are great ways to find a foundation that issue charitable donation, however, going online to sites like Noza Search is preferable as they are able to update information as it changes. This way, you know when a foundation has changed its method of donation or is no longer issuing grants. For additional information on Charitable Donations currently issuing grant money and the information you need to approach them, visit