FreeWill

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FreeWill Co is a company whose website, FreeWill.com, has online software which helps people write wills for free and make charitable contributions, and it reports each person's planned bequests to charities which pay subscription fees. [1] It also helps people write advance healthcare directives [2] and living trusts in California. [3]

Contents

Background

FreeWill is a public-benefit corporation founded at Stanford University in 2017 by Jennifer Xia Spradling and Patrick Schmitt. It has two social missions: The first is to create access to estate planning for all individuals regardless of their backgrounds or ability to pay. The second is to make it easy for people to leave money to charity. As a Public Benefit Corporation, they are legally obligated to pursue their social missions in addition to seeking financial return. [4]

The idea for FreeWill stemmed from cofounder Patrick Schmitt’s time working on fundraising campaigns for the Democratic National Committee where he learned how remove friction points in the donation process and increase individual donations. When it came time for Schmitt to do his own estate planning, he wondered why nobody had made it similarly easy to build charitable donations into your will. [5]

Town & Country magazine ranked the founding of FreeWill as one of the top 50 Philanthropic efforts of 2019. [6]

Business model

Charities pay a fee to FreeWill to have the charity's name included in the software, and receive reports of the name, address, assets, and planned bequest for each donor who agrees. [7] Donors are not required to leave money to charity. [8]

The company's products include wills, durable financial power of attorney, qualified charitable distributions, stock donations. [1] [9] and living wills (also known as advance healthcare directives or healthcare power of attorney). [2] FreeWill offers a living trust only in California. [3]

After entering all will information, users have options to download the will; or get more information; or see a lawyer, in which case the site offers the American Bar Association directory of all lawyers.

Market

As of June 2021, 295,000 people have prepared wills on the platform, 19% have included bequests to charities, and bequests average $111,000. The planned bequests total $3 billion. The largest numbers of donations [5] have been for the American Red Cross, [10] United Way, [11] Defenders of Wildlife [12] and Disabled American Veterans. [13] [5] The average user is 57 years old. [9]

Privacy

FreeWill is not a law firm and does not have an attorney-client relationship with customers. Privacy statements let the company store information on assets, children bequests, medical and religious preferences and use them to target ads and fundraising appeals. [14]

FreeWill says it uses modern security protocols. [15] They acknowledge that information can escape in security breaches, for which they do not accept liability. [14]

Dispute resolution

FreeWill disclaims liability for errors and omissions in their software; they also note that laws change rapidly. [16] If people nevertheless have disputes with the company, the users and company agree to use small claims courts or individual arbitration in New York City under "Commercial Arbitration Rules that contemplate in-person hearings." [16] The company's offices are in New York City, [17] and it is incorporated in Delaware. [18]

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Charitable trust Irrevocable trust established for charitable purposes

A charitable trust is an irrevocable trust established for charitable purposes and, in some jurisdictions, a more specific term than "charitable organization". A charitable trust enjoys a varying degree of tax benefits in most countries. It also generates good will. Some important terminology in charitable trusts is the term "corpus", which refers to the assets with which the trust is funded, and the term "donor", which is the person donating assets to a charity.

Advance healthcare directive Legal document

An advance healthcare directive, also known as living will, personal directive, advance directive, medical directive or advance decision, is a legal document in which a person specifies what actions should be taken for their health if they are no longer able to make decisions for themselves because of illness or incapacity. In the U.S. it has a legal status in itself, whereas in some countries it is legally persuasive without being a legal document.

Donation Gift given by physical or legal persons, typically for charitable purposes and/or to benefit a cause

A donation is a gift for charity, humanitarian aid, or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including money, alms, services, or goods such as clothing, toys, food, or vehicles. A donation may satisfy medical needs such as blood or organs for transplant.

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Fundraising Process of gathering voluntary contributions of money or other resources

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Charitable organization Nonprofit organization with charitable purpose

A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being.

Intuit American financial software company

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Estate planning

Estate planning is the process of anticipating and arranging, during a person's life, for the management and disposal of that person's estate during the person's life, in the event the person becomes incapacitated and after death. The planning includes the bequest of assets to heirs and may include minimizing gift, estate, generation skipping transfer, and taxes. Estate planning includes planning for incapacity as well as a process of reducing or eliminating uncertainties over the administration of a probate and maximizing the value of the estate by reducing taxes and other expenses. The ultimate goal of estate planning can only be determined by the specific goals of the estate owner and may be as simple or complex as the owner's wishes and needs directs. Guardians are often designated for minor children and beneficiaries in incapacity.

Free and open-source software Software whose source code is available and which is permissively licensed

Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software that is both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source code is openly shared so that people are encouraged to voluntarily improve the design of the software. This is in contrast to proprietary software, where the software is under restrictive copyright licensing and the source code is usually hidden from the users.

In the United States, a donor-advised fund is a charitable giving vehicle administered by a public charity created to manage charitable donations on behalf of organizations, families, or individuals. To participate in a donor-advised fund, a donating individual or organization opens an account in the fund and deposits cash, securities, or other financial instruments. They surrender ownership of anything they put in the fund, but retain advisory privileges over how their account is invested, and how it distributes money to charities.

Google Health Division of Google

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The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, which promotes the universal freedom to study, distribute, create, and modify computer software, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft terms, such as with its own GNU General Public License. The FSF was incorporated in Boston, Massachusetts, US, where it is also based.

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FundRazr

FundRazr is a free crowdfunding and online fundraising platform first released in 2009. FundRazr operates internationally in 35+ counties with the largest markets being United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia. It allows users to run a wide-range of crowdfunding campaigns by creating fundraising pages and sharing it via social media, messaging apps, email and more to raise money for 100+ types of causes such as nonprofit, medical care, education, community help, poverty alleviation, arts, memorials, and animal rescue causes. FundRazr also powers more than 4000 nonprofits, charities and social enterprises with an advanced fundraising toolset for free.

Dolibarr

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The Calyx Institute is a New York-based 501(c)(3) research and education nonprofit organization formed to make privacy and digital security more accessible. It was founded in 2010 by Nicholas Merrill, Micah Anderson, and Kobi Snitz.

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Farewill

Farewill provides will-writing, probate, and cremation services in the UK. It claims to be the UK's biggest will writer, accounting for 1 in 10 wills written. Farewill is registered in England and Wales with the Law Society and was declared the National Will Writing Firm of the year in 2019.

References

  1. 1 2 Sullivan, Paul (2018-09-07). "Making Wills Easier and Cheaper With Do-It-Yourself Options". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-04-23.
  2. 1 2 "What is an Advance Healthcare Directive (AHCD)?". FreeWill. Retrieved 2020-08-21.
  3. 1 2 "Write Your Legal Will Online, Free & Simple". FreeWill. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  4. ↑ "Write Your Legal Will Online, Free & Simple". FreeWill. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  5. 1 2 3 Wilson, Alexandra. "The Will To Give: This End-Of-Life Platform Is Facilitating $1.1 Billion In Charitable Donations". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-04-23.
  6. ↑ The Editors (2019-05-22). "Meet the T&C 50: The Top Philanthropists of 2019". Town & Country. Retrieved 2020-08-11.{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  7. ↑ Guzman, Zack (2018-10-16). "This startup lets you write a will for free by donating to charity". Yahoo Finance. Retrieved 2020-04-23.
  8. ↑ "Write Your Legal Will Online, Free & Simple". FreeWill. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  9. 1 2 Pinsker, Beth (2020-03-27). "Your Money: The one document Americans need now - Power of attorney". Reuters. Retrieved 2020-04-23.
  10. ↑ "Getting Started". redcrosslegacy.org. Retrieved 2020-04-27.
  11. ↑ "United Way of Western Connecticut". www.uwwesternct.org. Retrieved 2020-04-27.
  12. ↑ "Gifts from Your Will or Trust". Defenders of Wildlife. Retrieved 2020-04-27.
  13. ↑ "Give beyond Your Years" (PDF). DAV Magazine. March 2020. p. 37. Retrieved 2020-04-27.
  14. 1 2 "Privacy Statement". FreeWill. 2020-04-13. Retrieved 2020-04-21. "interest-based advertising;... organizations and their planned giving consultants to facilitate and report donations"
  15. ↑ "Write Your Legal Will Online, Free & Simple". FreeWill. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  16. 1 2 "Terms of Service". FreeWill. 2019-09-19. Retrieved 2020-04-27.
  17. ↑ "FreeWill, Raising a million dollars a day for charity". angel.co. Retrieved 2020-05-14.
  18. ↑ "Freewill Co. · 300 W 57th Street 40th Floor, New York, New York 10019". opendatany.com. Retrieved 2020-05-14.

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