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Leaving a Legacy - The Children Will Live on in You

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6: 20-21.

Coptic Orphans held its first “Leaving a Legacy” brunch in an intimate restaurant setting in Falls Church on Sunday, December 17, 2006, making available rich resources both for those present and for all who wish to “Leave a Legacy” through Coptic Orphans. Keynote speakers, John Mikhael, a financial advisor with Bank of America Investment Services, and Kamil Fahmi, former VP of World Wide Quality for GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceutical Corp., shared complimentary perspectives on ensuring one’s own future and the future of Coptic Orphans through wise financial planning.

Mr. Mikhael gave a detailed presentation of the various options open to those who wish to give while ensuring the financial future of oneself and one’s family. He told those present, “my goal is to teach techniques that are beneficial to both the donor and the organization.” He reviewed low-cost methods to make a very significant impact for Coptic Orphans through designating life insurance and retirement plan beneficiaries as well as participation in matching gift programs, he addressed ways to ensure that assets become legally secure for the future of one’s family and for Coptic Orphans, and he discussed the value of trusts and securing appreciated securities and assets. Mikhael discussed how, through charitable remainder and lead trusts, one can provide for one’s family while contributing significantly to Coptic Orphans, and discussed the ins and outs of planned giving and the tax benefit system.

Mr. Fahmi told a touching and heartfelt testimony about the personal significance of philanthropy. He laments spending the significant part of his life pursuing success. As an exceptionally successful businessman and shrewd investor, Mr. Fahmi climbed to the top of a multi-national pharmaceutical corporation and experienced extraordinary financial success. Then, at the height of his career, he suffered a massive stroke. After three days in a coma he awoke up in a hospital bed to find himself totally paralyzed on the left side of his body. During his long months of convalescence, the parable of the rich man in Luke 12:16-21 came alive to him. Like the rich man in Jesus’ parable, he had amassed great wealth for his future and had said to himself, “now I can take it easy,” only to nearly lose the very future for which he worked. Since then, Mr. Fahmi has committed himself to philanthropic endeavors with Coptic Orphans and to explaining the importance of ensuring that one’s wealth becomes an investment in the Kingdom of God, where, unlike on earth, it will bear rich and secure dividends for eternal life. Mr. Fahmi’s personal testimony encouraged everyone present to make wise investments that have eternal dividends rather than temporary investments that one loses totally at the end of life. As he remarked later during the brunch, “You cannot take it with you… but you can send it along ahead of you.”

For more details on planned giving, please call Coptic Orphans at 703.641.8910 or toll free at 1.800.499.2989, or e-mail Doris Abdel Messieh, director of public relations, at dabdelmessieh@copticorphans.org.