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Sometimes people realize they own graves that they will not be using and wish to donate them to the local Jewish Federation. Our Federation has been accepting these graves, after advising donors to confer with GraveSolutions.com to get an appraisal that the IRS will accept. We would appreciate advice on how to use the donated graves, other than for the occasional burial of an indigent person. Are there success stories in a Federation monetizing these?
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Hi, Mike,
That is interesting that people are donating the graves to Federation. When we have people who wish to donate graves they own, they do so through us, the cemetery vs. Federation. There are a few cases of people having donated graves to the Jewish elderly facility, but generally they donate back to the cemetery. We then use them for indigent burial. I would advocate for the graves held by Federation to be transferred back to the cemetery, so that you can keep track of them and control their use. What if one of the graves becomes unviable for some reason? How would Federation know before offering the grave to someone?
We have a fairly large number of graves that have been donated back to the cemetery and that we have slated for indigent burial. We are fortunate that, like you, we do not have too many cases annually that require their use. We do not have any evidence to support the following, but: We hedging that over time there will be an increased need in our community. We think health care and long-term care costs are rising and people are living longer, and we think that could result in people living beyond their means and needing indigent graves. So, while we could try to sell them, we think they may have a use, in addition to keeping the graves for the purpose the donors wished.
Best,
David -
In our area, we have several large Jewish cemeteries which, although not-for-profit, are run like businesses. People who own unused graves in the sections owned by the cemetery itself, as opposed to sections owned by synagogues and burial societies, have donated them to the local Jewish Federation. Moving forward, would you suggest that people donate their unused graves back to the cemetery, rather than the Federation?
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Our Federation accepts donations of plots. We keep an inventory of them. Sometimes we use them to bury low-income community members. Sometimes we have traded plots in valuable locations for locations in less valuable locations, and the cemetery then provides opening/closing/liner/etc for no charge.
In one instance, we had to approach the Attorney General about a problem in a cemetery, and though it did not end up turning into a trial, thank goodness, it was useful that we could show we owned plots in the cemetery and therefore had a legal stake in the upkeep of the property.
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Mike,
Addie makes a good point/case for Federation being a holder of rights to graves in a situation where maybe the cemetery management is questionable. In our case, we prefer the graves are donated back to us, but I could see that being contingent of having a responsible entity to which to donate the graves and Federation is likely that in many communities without a community cemetery association or “big cemetery” entity.
David
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