Mrs. Edge
Bono's Belly Dancing Friend
As most of you know, I am a fundraiser by day. The last charity I worked for was the Humane Society. While there, I met a donor, who is Canadian originally, but now works for the State of Texas. She has a number of investments in the States, and she was originally leaving all of her estate to the Society, but because of the state of their Board, has left most of her money to another charity. I helped her in this process of finding reputable charities.
She has no family (that I know of) except for a cat, and she is planning on moving back to Canada soon. She is a very nice lady and we stayed in touch after I moved jobs. Recently she asked if she could use my address as a reference for moving back to Canada. I said of course.
WELL. Today, I got the following email from her:
Hi there....just a very quick email to let you know what I'm planning. I am going to change the beneficiary to one of my investments which I have where I work to name you personally for all of the funds for this particular investment. Jessica, I would like you to have half of the funds for yourself and the other half to use at your discretion to help animals, namely cats. You are so kind to allow me, someone you've never actually met even, to use your address and to be so willing to assist me. Only a very nice person would do such a thing, and I want to thank you somehow. Please let me know if you are willing to use half of the funds for helping cats (whether it is buying blankets for shelters, food for cats, helping out with animal disaster relief, whatever) and I would want you to keep half for yourself to use in whatever way you desire (hopefully for fun)!
This has totally blown me away. What should I do? On the one hand, I should really not accept this at all, and insist that she leaves everything to charity. On the other hand, I could accept it, and donate all of my portion to charity.
Of course then I fantasize that it will be millions and I could keep some of my half and pay off my house......
But I would never want anyone official to think that I put her up to this, because this is a total surprise to me! Plus, knowing her the way I do, she probably will insist on giving it to me.
WHAT TO DO??????
She has no family (that I know of) except for a cat, and she is planning on moving back to Canada soon. She is a very nice lady and we stayed in touch after I moved jobs. Recently she asked if she could use my address as a reference for moving back to Canada. I said of course.
WELL. Today, I got the following email from her:
Hi there....just a very quick email to let you know what I'm planning. I am going to change the beneficiary to one of my investments which I have where I work to name you personally for all of the funds for this particular investment. Jessica, I would like you to have half of the funds for yourself and the other half to use at your discretion to help animals, namely cats. You are so kind to allow me, someone you've never actually met even, to use your address and to be so willing to assist me. Only a very nice person would do such a thing, and I want to thank you somehow. Please let me know if you are willing to use half of the funds for helping cats (whether it is buying blankets for shelters, food for cats, helping out with animal disaster relief, whatever) and I would want you to keep half for yourself to use in whatever way you desire (hopefully for fun)!
This has totally blown me away. What should I do? On the one hand, I should really not accept this at all, and insist that she leaves everything to charity. On the other hand, I could accept it, and donate all of my portion to charity.
Of course then I fantasize that it will be millions and I could keep some of my half and pay off my house......
But I would never want anyone official to think that I put her up to this, because this is a total surprise to me! Plus, knowing her the way I do, she probably will insist on giving it to me.
WHAT TO DO??????