Former patient Dana Togni leads a busy life as a global customer-service manager and a volunteer for nonprofit organizations. Nevertheless, she has taken the time to make a will, which includes a bequest to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

"While I'm in my early 30s and look forward to a long, full life, from my experience as a patient at the Hutchinson Center, I am intimately aware of my own mortality," she said. "Having a will gives me the peace of mind that the assets I'm accumulating now will be distributed in a meaningful way. It was natural for me to make a gift through my estate to the Hutchinson Center because I hold them in gratitude for all the life I've had since my transplant 12 years ago."

Planned gifts like the bequest from Togni are a selfless type of giving. Donors of these wonderful gifts do not experience the joy of seeing the advances their gifts make possible, but they are secure in the knowledge that the Center will use their gifts to benefit future generations.

"My gift will help fund the effort to provide more and better cures, giving others the same opportunity I had to receive these precious, 'extra' years. I can't imagine a more appropriate way to say thank you. Bequests and other planned gifts like charitable trusts and charitable annuities give a whole new meaning to legacy."

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