Endowment Donation can be a wonderful gift

For my father’s Sashtiaptharpurthi (61st birthday) in 1990, we had a big celebration and the extended family and friends from various places, including from far North of India, assembled in Thirukadaiyur where we had made booking for all of them. It was an elaborate function spread over 2 days. It was a wonderful event and we still cherish going through the Album of photographs with nostalgia. However, over the years such elaborate functions have become less common. I presume that this is perhaps because of increased longevity and social norms adjusting to the changed situation.

In 2010, when it was time to celebrate my father’s Sathabhishegam (81st birthday), when we started discussing the plans on where and how to celebrate, my father put his foot down and flatly refused to have an elaborate function. He wanted to celebrate at home with his children and grand children and did not want any religious / vedic rituals. We had made our financial plans for an elaborate function and when we could not convince our father to change his mind, we decided that we should donate the money earmarked for the function to some charity.

My wife Leela had just started getting involved with Bala Mandir supporting in the donations area. On her suggestion we decided to create an endowment in my father’s name. On his 81st birthday, we gifted him the endowment receipt along with a letter from Maya thanking us for the donation. That was perhaps the best gift we had ever given to my father. He was not aware of our plans and became very emotional reading the letter and seeing the receipt. That was my first experience on the “power of giving” and the potential it has in bringing joy.

As I write this blog now in 2023, many things have happened. In 2012, I got involved with Bala Mandir and now it is an integral part of our family. Over the years we have expanded the endowment to include my mother’s name and every year we are adding to the endowment and this has not stopped even after my retirement. Now my sister has also joined me and she also contributes to the same endowment every year during my parents’ birthday. This is being done through a process we call as “top up”(*) which happens every year. It has been a wonderful experience to see the endowment grow and to keep my parents updated on the progress being made.

In endowment donation, the principal remains in perpetuity and Bala Mandir deposits the money in in secured bank deposits as per their policy and the interest earned on deposits is used for the defined purpose which is usually support for some defined activity of Bala Mandir. Over the years the purpose of the endowment has also changed as the Bala Mandir needs change but we know that the money is spent well and the endowment itself keeps growing through our annual contributions. Every year we get a report from Bala Mandir on how the endowment interest is being used and my parents enjoy reading these reports.

I have been giving donations to charitable organisations for many years now, but this endowment experience has been a unique one and I know that this is going to help organisations like Bala Mandir continue to extend their good work in the future besides being a wonderful gift idea which helps remember the donor in perpetuity.

Author’s foot note – (*) Earlier every yearly endowment used to stand alone with no linkage from one year to another. After the concept of annual top up has been added, every endowment has been given a name (of the donor’s choice) with possibility of adding to the endowment every year. If the readers wish to know details about how the Bala Mandir endowments work, please contact Sangeetha at sangeetha@balamandir.org or call at + 91 91508 86262.

P. Natarajan