Charitable Gift Annuities

A Charitable Gift Annuity (CGA) is an investment in the future of the Free Library. A CGA guarantees you an income for life and allows the Library to invest your gift during your lifetime.

Here's how it works:

  • A CGA can be established by someone 65 or older, with a gift of $10,000 or more.
  • The Free Library agrees to pay you a fixed payment every quarter for the rest of your life. This amount is guaranteed and will never change regardless of the economic climate.
  • A significant portion of this payment is tax free, and you can take a charitable deduction in the year you make the gift.
  • The remainder of your gift annuity can be restricted to a specific purpose or neighborhood library, or can be left unrestricted to meet the Library's most critical needs.

Establishing a CGA today means that you are supporting the Library in a meaningful way and generating an income for yourself that you can depend on well into the future. Individuals who create CGAs are members of The Benoliel Society. We're thrilled to be able to offer charitable gift annuities and are happy to work with you and your advisor to get started.

For more information, please contact The Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation at 215-567-7710 or giving@freelibrary.org

Donor Profile

Sometimes the most generous gifts come from the most unexpected places.

Raymond Fay was a high school science teacher in North Philadelphia who made a modest salary—never more than $11,400—and led a very private, quiet life. He was a humble man who lived frugally and didn’t own a car or a telephone, but he read more than 16,000 books in his lifetime, most of which he checked out from the Free Library of Philadelphia.

When Raymond passed away at age 92 in 1995, the Free Library learned that he had bequeathed his entire life savings—$1.5 million—to the Library. At the time, this was the biggest private donation in the Library’s history, and it increased the Library’s endowment at the time by a third, from $4.5 million to $6 million. This increased endowment allowed the Free Library to deeply invest in its crucial resources and programs, enriching the lives of more Philadelphians of all ages than ever before.

While Raymond’s gift certainly had an enormous impact on the Free Library system, bequests of any size transform lives and make a lasting difference for the hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians who use and depend on the Free Library every day.