Bequests create lasting legacy of hope and healing
By Wayne Lewis
Since City of Hope’s inception almost a century ago, its supporters have left their mark by advancing the institution’s compassionate care and groundbreaking scientific investigations through bequests — gifts from wills and trusts.
Such donations are critical to City of Hope. Over the past five years, bequests have represented about a quarter of all funds raised. Because many bequests are unrestricted gifts, they are particularly powerful assets in the fight against cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Unrestricted gifts allow City of Hope the flexibility to direct funds where they can make the greatest enduring impact.
“Bequests are essential to advancing City of Hope’s research and patient care,” said Amy Goldman, vice president of gift planning. “And for those who believe in our mission, it can be the ideal way to establish their legacy.”
Naming City of Hope in a will or trust costs nothing immediately. Donors can maintain their lifestyle knowing that their decision will propel lifesaving research and treatment. Bequests may even reduce the burden of estate taxes for heirs.
City of Hope offers other benefits, too, through the Legacy of Hope Society. Membership is open to anyone who plans to make a bequest to City of Hope, regardless of the size of the gift. Interested donors may join by alerting City of Hope’s gift planning staff that they intend to remember the institution in their estate plans.
Members receive a certificate honoring their gift and a special pin as well as periodic updates about research progress at City of Hope. In recognition of society members’ generosity, their names are inscribed on the Windows of Hope in the second-floor atrium at the Geri & Richard Brawerman Ambulatory Care Center.
One Legacy of Hope Society member, Beryl Lobe, has willed funds to pediatric cancer research at City of Hope. As a cancer survivor, Lobe knows the disease’s toll firsthand. And she is determined that her own legacy will make a difference for cancer’s youngest targets.
“When I see children, I see our future,” said Lobe, a longtime San Fernando Valley resident who now lives in Laguna Woods, Calif. “It is extremely important that we find the cure for this deadly disease. We’ve got to save these kids.”
Lobe has been a member of the Esperanza Chapter since moving to Laguna Woods more than a decade ago. She has volunteered for several hospitals and charities, although recent health issues have curtailed her participation.
Despite her medical challenges, Lobe’s energetic dedication to City of Hope remains strong.
“If City of Hope needs me for something, I’m more than happy to help,” she said. “The more I’ve been involved, the more remarkable the experience has been.”
Not all supporters’ bequests take the form of cash. For instance, the Trust of Goldyne Savad recently donated property worth $700,000 to City of Hope (see “Good as gold” below). Her nephew and the trustee of her estate, Lawrence M. Rosen, M.D., looked for the best ways to fulfill her wishes.
“She told me, ‘I would love to help in the cure for cancer,’” said Rosen, a radiologist and resident of Santa Monica, Calif. “That wish was one of my guiding principles.” Rosen chose City of Hope because of its leading role in advanced genetic therapies to fight cancer.
“City of Hope has a stellar reputation for cancer research,” he said. “Of course, you never know who’s going to hit the home run when it comes to medical discoveries. After meeting with some of the doctors at City of Hope, I felt it would be the best direction for her donations.”
Good as gold
All three organizations honor the name “Goldyne Savad” — recognition of a remarkable woman whose generosity now lives on through research.
Savad, who died in June 2008 at the age of 100, was a secretary, brilliant self-taught investor and philanthropist. Her loved ones called her “Goldie.”
Born in Chicago, she was the youngest of six children and the only one born in the United States. Her family had fled Ukraine in 1907 to escape a pogrom. She and her siblings were raised by their mother, Bessie, in Omaha, Neb. The family moved to East Los Angeles in the 1920s.
Although Savad’s outstanding grades backed her aspirations to become a lawyer, the family’s poverty diverted her to secretarial school. She lived frugally and invested her small but growing savings in the stock market — with amazing success. She plotted her financial strategy during daily phone calls with her stockbroker.
“We visited with her broker,” said her nephew Lawrence M. Rosen, M.D., “and he confided in me, ‘Frankly, I learned more from her than she did from me.’”
Savad looked to use her wealth to help others. In 1998, the lifelong member of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, donated funds to establish the Goldyne Savad Institute of Gene Therapy at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. A 1999 gift funded the Goldyne Savad Library Center at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Penn.
After her death, Savad’s trust supported a number of institutions, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the University of California, Los Angeles. But the largest portions of the multimillion-dollar estate were awarded to Hadassah and City of Hope.
To honor this generosity, laboratories in City of Hope’s Bernice & Arthur H. Shapiro Research Building have been dubbed “Goldyne Savad Laboratories,” adding to recognitions already on the Windows of Hope and at City of Hope Helford Clinical Research Hospital — a few mementos to her philanthropic legacy.
Writing in The Jewish Journal, Rosen described his aunt as committed to giving to others: “Generously. Totally. Quietly. No trumpets.”