When Lucia Whittelsey '73 was concerned about leaving her savings in the stock market, she turned to Colby. "I have more faith in Colby than I do in the stock market in general," she said.
"My father was an active alum and class agent at Haverford for many years, and I initially thought of helping to set up a fund there," Lucia said. "Then I received a mailing from Colby and took it to the next level—crunching numbers." That coincided with the beginning of the stock market downturn, which gave Lucia the additional motivation of wanting to find a safer place for her savings.
Lucia is best known around Colby as the director of financial aid, but she also personally supports Colby financial aid and established her charitable gift annuity for that purpose. "Creating funds for specific groups sends a message to prospective students that Colby just might be affordable for them, " she said. "An example of this is Dartmouth’s appeal to Native American students based on that university’s reputation and history (7 percent of the Dartmouth class of ’12 is Native American). As far as I know, they do nothing more for these students than does Colby in terms of financial aid eligibility.” Colby has a variety of specified financial aid funds—many donors have designated financial aid for Maine students, for example—but few for Native American students. “We need to send more messages that build our reputation in areas we think are important."
In addition to providing need-based financial assistance with a preference for Native American students, the annuity will be a source of income to Lucia when she retires. Because she was ready to make the gift but didn’t know exactly when she’ll retire, Lucia chose to establish a flexible charitable gift annuity, allowing her to select a range of future dates for starting to receive annuity payments, and she can decide later when she’d like to have the payments begin. Lucia also appreciated the immediate tax deduction at the time of the gift, and that some of her annuity will be tax-free income.
"I have made frugality a project, a form of entertainment," said Lucia. "I am interested in a life of balance, something that does not come naturally to me." She continues to enjoy and value her work at Colby and sees it as a "starfish on the beach" process: "When the tide goes out, we might not be able to save all the starfish that are left on the sand, but we can still make a difference for the ones we are able to throw back into the water."
