Jim Kimmel ’70 Uses Charitable Gift Annuities and Charitable Remainder Trust to Enhance Swarthmore’s Future

For Jim Kimmel ’70, Swarthmore College was an inflection point in his life — broadening his personal and intellectual horizons. Now, with charitable gift annuities (CGAs) and a charitable remainder trust (CRT), Kimmel is generously ensuring that future generations of Swarthmore scholars will experience the same life-enhancing benefits.

Growing up in a Philadelphia suburb, Kimmel said his high school offered little in the way of diversity of either ideas or people. Arriving at Swarthmore changed all that.

“Swarthmore introduced me to a whole gamut of new people, opportunities, experiences, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, everything,” he says. “I found that whole immersion in this ecosystem very interesting. I gained a greater sense of identity and worth and expanded my intellectual and personal horizons.”

After graduation, Kimmel would go on to earn a post-graduate business degree and enjoy a successful career in banking, investment management, and private wealth management. He sees his CGA and CRT gifts to Swarthmore as outstanding ways to give back while providing tax and income benefits for himself.

“First, you’re making a tax-deductible gift,” he says. “Second, you get an immediate tax deduction, and third, with the CGA, you get an annuity for life.” Finally, he says, there is the additional benefit of knowing you are assisting the College in ways that will promote its mission and change lives well into the future.

“Swarthmore was very good to me, so I wanted a chance to give back,” he says. He urges his fellow alumni to join him in making a planned gift.

“You’re doing good by yourself and you’re doing good by the College,” he says. “You’re making a nice tax-deductible contribution, and you get income by helping the College. I mean, it’s win-win-win.”