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professor at South Dakota State University, and began helping to
run the family farm.
Both Christiansen and Hamilton were deeply involved in their
community, and Hamilton to this day serves on the boards of many
charitable organizations. She and her mother had also long
wanted to use some of their wealth to benefit their home state.
The family had already donated parkland to Kimball, South Dakota
in 1998, but mother and daughter wanted some way to permanently
fund projects in education and economic development. After
meeting with a local law firm in the late 1990s, they decided to
organize a charitable foundation as part of Christiansen’s estate
plan.
The Matson, Halverson, Christiansen Foundation and the Helen
Christiansen Testamentary Charitable Lead Trust were at the
center of this plan. Christiansen and Hamilton expected that
part of Christiansen’s estate would find its way to the
Foundation, and part would find its way to the Trust. The
Foundation would fund charitable causes at a rate they hoped
would be about $15,000 annually--in the Foundation’s application
to the IRS for recognition of exempt status, Hamilton stated:
The initial source of funding for the
foundation will be $50,000 from the Helen
Christiansen Estate providing a 5 percent
income stream annually. Additionally, there
will be annual funding from a 7 percent
charitable lead annuity trust equaling
$12,500.
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Last modified: March 27, 2008