Elder Law Issues

This is the second in a series regarding community foundations. An introduction can be found here.

At its heart, Jewish Philanthropies of Southern Arizona’s Jewish Community Foundation (JCF) helps people live their values through philanthropy.  Rooted in the Jewish tradition of tzedakah (giving as an act of justice), JCF partners with individuals and families to create personalized giving strategies that reflect their passions, support the causes they care about, and build legacies for future generations.

Through Donor Advised Funds, Endowment Funds, legacy gifts, and other charitable giving strategies, JCF helps donors make a difference today and plan for tomorrow. By understanding what matters most to each fundholder and keeping a pulse on community needs, it connects their philanthropic visions with charitable opportunities, turning personal values into meaningful impact.

Across the Jewish and broader communities, JCF partners with nonprofits to build charitable assets, strengthen endowments, and sustain their missions. Through education, collaboration, and strategic guidance, JCF helps organizations grow and thrive.

JCF works closely with professional advisors, helping attorneys, accountants, financial advisors, and their clients incorporate charitable planning into conversations about legacy, purpose, and community impact.

By bringing together donors, nonprofits, and professional advisors, JCF serves as a trusted convener for philanthropy. Together, these connections help turn values into action, strengthen our community, and create lasting impact for generations to come.

Contact information for the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona can be found here:

Brenda Landau, Director of Legacy Development

[email protected]

Foundation | Jewish Philanthropies of Southern Arizona

3718 E. River Rd | Tucson, AZ | 85718

This is the first in a series regarding community foundations. An introduction can be found here.

The Community Foundation for Southern Arizona (CFSA) inspires generosity and strengthens communities through individualized philanthropy, strategic grantmaking, nonprofit support, and community leadership. Since 1980, CFSA has partnered with donors, nonprofits, businesses, and community leaders to invest in the people and ideas that help Southern Arizona thrive. Together, we are building a vibrant and equitable region where generosity takes root, and everyone can bloom.

Contact information for the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona can be found here:

Laura Maher Forszt, Vice President for Philanthropy

[email protected]

cfsaz.org

5049 E Broadway Blvd, Suite 201, Tucson, Arizona 85711

Tangible Personal Property Administration

What is tangible personal property? The basic answer is anything you can touch, but this often causes confusion. Certain items do and do not count, which can lead to frustration among family members of a deceased individual. In this podcast, we do our best to definite tangible personal property and discuss some of our experiences with it in estates.

What we often find is that the least valuable pieces tend to be the ones most fought over. As a result, we will also go over ways one might lessen some of the fighting from an Arizona attorney perspective.

Join us in our discussion of tangible personal property administration.

In this introduction to a three-part series of Elder Law Issues podcast episodes, Fleming & Curti, PLC attorney Elizabeth Friman tackles the Community Foundation industry (and principal players) in Tucson.

A Conversation on Prenuptials

Fleming & Curti, PLC has worked with many clients who have either done prenuptial agreements or are interested in doing them. This can affect estate planning and other conversations in a meeting. For example, if a non-married couple is contemplating marriage and a prenuptial agreement, they will likely have to get separate representation for each side of their agreement. As a result of this, many firms that represent spouses or partners jointly will refuse to create one.

We also discuss another concern that spouses or partners have. How does their prenuptial enforce how much they can leave their significant other in their estate plans? We briefly touch upon these topics in today’s podcast. We hope this will inspire you to have a conversation on prenuptials with your spouse or partner.

How much discretion should you give a trustee? Some clients have felt tempted to restrict a trustee in an attempt to protect their beneficiaries’ inheritance. Today we will explain our position that this is generally not advisable. There may be circumstances that arise where your beneficiary may need funds and the trustee should have the ability to support them. Conversely, forcing a trustee into a fixed monthly distribution may harm a beneficiary’s ability to get financial aid or government benefits. Why have their inheritance pay for things that the university or government should? That is why today’s podcast discusses some of our experiences with the positives of giving your trustee discretion.

Pets in Estate Plans

We are pet lovers here at Fleming & Curti, PLC. Many of us have dogs, cats and even snakes. With that in mind, we believe it is very important to create a plan for your animals in the event you are unable to or pass away. In this podcast, we touch on powers of attorney, bequests in a will and pet trusts. We go over our experiences and recommendations for each of these from an Arizona attorney perspective. We also might share a few anecdotes about our own pets as well as examples of various wishes we have seen in the past.

Qualified Disability Trusts have been a concept for around 25 years. While the term may be a bit more obscure these days, you may be familiar with one type, the special needs trust.

Many people establishing these types of trusts for their beneficiaries have a lot of tax related questions and concerns. In today’s podcast we go over some of these, such as capital gains and the tax brackets of the beneficiary vs. the trust.

Aging and technology can be a scary concept for those of us in an older cohort. Fortunately, many pieces of technology can actually make aging a bit easier. In this podcast we give our thoughts and some examples of these. We discuss calendars, payment applications and multifactor authentication.

We also discuss when and where implementing pieces of technology might be most useful in your life, if you are not already tech savvy. Additionally, we speak on when you may want to skip out on certain items like authenticators and password managers.

Assessing Testamentary Capacity.

Making sure a client has capacity before signing any documents is an important aspect of being an attorney. Doctor’s notes and family testimony can only paint some of the picture. Additionally, capacity is not either “you have it or you don’t”. Capacity can change with age, experiences and even just time of day.

In this podcast, we discuss how we look at capacity in our practice. We hope this gives a clear picture of why we do not include family in meetings with our clients, as well as what we are looking for in these meetings. Assessing testamentary capacity can be challenging without meeting with a client alone.