Personal Donor Stories

We thank all our planned-gift donors for their generous support. Here are some of their stories.

A Bequest

Ellen Muradian, R.N.

“I know how much she loved the hospital…”

After a friend and coworker died, Ellen Muradian, a nurse at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, learned about bequests and how simple it is to remember a charity in a will. She remembered her friend and thought, “I know how much she loved the hospital, and I know she would have included Lutheran in her will, if she had only known it was possible.”

Upon learning how easy it is to make a charitable bequest, Ellen met with her attorney to add a bequest for Lutheran to her own will. Now, Ellen is one of Advocate Health Care’s best ambassadors, encouraging others to take this simple, but very significant step to support quality health care at Advocate.

You can make a bequest to Advocate Health Care through Advocate Charitable Foundation in either your will or living trust. Making a bequest provides you the opportunity to give any amount you wish from your assets to Advocate or one of its hospitals or programs—free of estate or gift taxes. You can give a specific dollar amount, specific property, a percentage of your estate or the value remaining after specific bequests and individuals are paid. Call us at (847) 384-3428 for further information on making bequests to Advocate. We recommend that you seek the advice of an attorney specializing in estate planning when making a gift through a will or trust.

A Charitable Gift Annuity

Chuck Horwitz

“I’ve always felt that all of us have a reason for being here. And that reason is to help one another.”

As a Mason serving in his lodge and local chapter for 25 years, Chuck has helped countless other people. Also, he has been a longtime volunteer at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center and is now serving as a member of its Charitable Council.

Yet Chuck saw a further need going unfilled: many Masons needed financial assistance to receive quality health care services at the hospital. So he helped found the Masonic Assistance Program — and then established a charitable gift annuity with Advocate Charitable Foundation to help fund the program.

The Masonic Assistance Program helps Masons in need to pay for the services they receive at Illinois Masonic Medical Center. “This charitable gift annuity gives me the opportunity to assist fellow Masons and their families,” Chuck said. “It allows me to have my cake and eat it, too, in a sense.”

The ingredients in Chuck’s “cake” are the many benefits of making a contribution through a charitable gift annuity. Benefits include lifetime payments for Chuck and his wife and an immediate charitable deduction in the year of his gift. In addition, a gift made with appreciated securities — like Chuck’s gift of stock — reduces his capital gains tax liability.

A charitable gift annuity offers many financial benefits for you and the opportunity to help others. When establishing a gift annuity with Advocate, you can direct us to use your gift to fund programs at one of Advocate’s hospitals or direct us to use your gift for Advocate’s most pressing needs at a particular time. Call us at (847) 384-3428 for further information.

A Deferred-Payment Charitable Gift Annuity

Janine Katonah

“I think that if there’s a ministry occurring that we believe in, we should support it.”

Janine Katonah, a friend of Advocate who is particularly concerned for the future of Advocate Bethany Hospital, serves on the hospital’s governing council.

Originally owned by the Church of the Brethren and still located on Chicago’s West Side, Bethany Hospital was founded as a church ministry. Today, Bethany stays close to its faith-based roots. Its mission to care for the patients of its struggling West Side neighborhood remains the same.

Janine’s ongoing concern for Bethany led her to make a gift to meet Bethany’s greatest needs. She established a deferred-payment charitable gift annuity. The annuity provides a gift to help ensure a strong future for Bethany while providing Janine with a fixed lifetime income set to begin several years from now.

“The gift is primarily to benefit Bethany, but there’s also a benefit to me,” she said. “The biggest benefit for me, though, is not the retirement income that the annuity will pay, but the chance to express my commitment to the care that Bethany provides to the West Side of Chicago. There are particularly great needs in this area, and Bethany is a great beacon for what health care can do there.”

A deferred-payment charitable gift annuity offers you all of the benefits of the traditional annuity and the additional opportunity to delay income payments, for example, until your retirement years, and receive a higher payment rate. As with Advocate’s traditional gift annuity, you can direct us to use your gift to fund programs at one of Advocate’s hospitals or direct us to use your gift for Advocate’s most pressing needs at a particular time. Call us at (847) 384-3428 for additional information.