The Southeastern Railway Museum is fortunate to have dedicated members and financial supporters. As the State of Georgia’s Official Transportation History Museum, our continued success depends on the financial support of individuals, companies, foundations and benefactors who support our mission. We deeply appreciate your financial support, and strive to make it easy and rewarding to contribute. Simply use the form below, or donate by mail.
Please mail your check to:
Southeastern Railway Museum
Attn: Membership
PO Box 1267
Duluth, GA 30096-0023
The museum has the following items on our wish list of needs:
If you’re interested in donating an item on our wish list or other items, please reach out to the administrator via the museum’s contact page.
In our fund-raising efforts we have always been fortunate to have financial donors of every age and all of those donations are always deeply appreciated and much needed to help us achieve our mission.
In the process of seeking financial support and pledges we have been made aware of a tool that will enable supporters to not only donate funds to the museum but to also save personal tax dollars in the process using a process called Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs). Contact your financial adviser for ways to help.
A planned gift is generally considered to be a gift that is arranged during your client’s lifetime that comes to fruition in the future. Planned gifts are a way to ensure that you create your own charitable legacy, even if those plans can’t be implemented until later.
The most common form of planned giving is a charitable bequest in a will or trust. . Your bequest can be a specific amount, a percentage of your client’s estate or even the residual balance of the estate after all other bequests have been made. The Museum can accept both designated and unrestricted funds.
Perhaps the most tax advantageous bequest, and in some ways the simplest, is to name the Southeastern Railway Museum as the beneficiary of your IRA, 401(k) or 403(b). This can be done by changing the beneficiary designation through your IRA providers web site. Retirement benefits are usually taxed as ordinary income upon distribution to a beneficiary. As a public charity, however, the Southeastern Railway Museum generally does not pay income tax. A gift of retirement assets may only be worth 60-80% of their value to individual beneficiaries on an after-tax basis, but public charities can enjoy 100% of the value. One additional way to give from retirement accounts is the Qualified Charitable Distribution, where individuals above 70 1/2 can gift funds from their IRA directly to charity. This approach does fulfill your minimum required distribution but is not tax deductible. This tool is especially helpful to those who have an overfunded IRA.
(c) 2019-2025 Southeastern Railway Museum.