Francis James, right, and a friend prepare to board a helicopter for a trip to the Tanzanian border.

When Francis James received a letter from Glenmary Home Missioners in the early 1990s, the text and photos brought back fond memories of his volunteer experience at the Glenmary Farm during his junior year at the University of Notre Dame. He still remembers it as a “great week in Appalachia.”

During that week Francis also learned about the home mission work of Glenmary priests and brothers. Over the years he has become impressed with Glenmary missioners’ “low-key approach of helping meet material and spiritual needs” in the home missions. So impressed that he decided to begin supporting Glenmary financially.

Many times donors begin their financial support of a charitable organization like Glenmary by making donations to an annual fund. Francis took another approach. His first gift to Glenmary was made by establishing a revocable trust in 1991 when he was in his late 20s, an age when not many are thinking about planned gifts or retirement.

“I’ve tried to be ahead of the curve,” Francis says, pointing out that a revocable trust benefits the giver as well as Glenmary and will ultimately help him with long-range financial planning.

The financial gift that Francis made has been placed in a trust and Glenmary will pay, on a quarterly basis, the income earned by the trust for the rest of his life. Upon his death, the principal of the trust comes to Glenmary.

Francis calls establishing a trust a financial “no-brainer,” because the income from the trust is benefiting his family today and the assets of the trust will benefit Glenmary in the future.

Francis and his wife, Olivia, have two young children so planning for the financial future of their family is very important to them. And they have found that pursuing planned giving opportunities with Glenmary has helped them achieve some of their financial goals.

Francis may well be the only Glenmary planned giver living in a small country in Central East Africa! He grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., but has been living and working in Burundi for the past three months as the head of the justice unit for the United Nations Integrated Office. The justice unit is part of an effort to re-build the country after 13 years of ethnic conflict. “It’s a challenging and exciting job,” Francis says.

Francis says the foundation for his career in international development and his commitment to philanthropy was laid by his family.

“My parents have always had a tradition of helping people—giving both time and money to worthy causes,” he says. “When you have living examples set by parents, peers and mentors, you’ll often follow those examples in your own life.”

} Working in development and human rights, “you’re always looking for ways to invest in good people,” he says. And he considers his support of Glenmary as investing in good people.

Although in his profession Francis is involved on an international stage, he believes that it is important to support domestic causes, such as Glenmary. “I’ve had a very eventful life,” he says. In that life, he says, he’s learned that “all politics is local. Americans are generous and support programs in Africa, but we still have a lot of challenges at home.”

Supporting Glenmary’s home mission work through his planned gift is a way he can help address some of those challenges. “My professional skills are at use overseas,” he says. “But I’m rooted in who I am as an American citizen.”

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2007 Planning Ahead Newsletter

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