Brands Make Lifetime and Legacy Gifts from Their IRA

Doug and Barbara Brand, 1984

Douglas Brand, MD, and his wife, Barbara, PhD, created the Drs. Douglas and Barbara Brand Diversity in Medicine Endowed Scholarship Fund at Stony Brook as part of their family’s commitment to education. Douglas' father founded an endowed scholarship at the University of Connecticut, where he was an engineering professor. “His donation provided tuition for one new engineering student each year,” Douglas said. “My father linked his legacy to that university by helping students, and I thought we could do the same at Stony Brook.”

Douglas was one of the first doctors to open Stony Brook University Hospital in 1980, and Barbara worked at the University’s library. Part of what Douglas loved about working at the hospital was training the medical students. He did notice that, at times, it was difficult for some students to pay for their medical education. Wanting to help, Douglas and Barbara established their scholarship to help ease the financial burden for medical students from diverse backgrounds.

After speaking with their advisors, the couple decided to fund their scholarship with a five-year pledge utilizing IRA qualified charitable distributions (QCDs). With this vehicle, donors elect to have their IRA provider transfer funds directly to Stony Brook. These funds count toward your required minimum distribution but are not included in your taxable income for the year. To ensure their fund continues to support students even after their lifetimes, Douglas and Barbara also named Stony Brook as a beneficiary of their IRA because they knew it would be heavily taxed when left to family and friends.

“Knowing that our future scholarship recipients can focus on their studies gives us the same joy my father felt. And that is a good feeling,” Douglas said. “We are very happy to be a small part of the bigger picture at Stony Brook.”