St Jude Children’s Hospital Fights Donors’ Families in Court for Estate Shares

Hint for people writing wills: when you give a certain percentage of your estate to a charity, they have a reason to engage deeply with the executor. It's actually kind of a pain; they can demand a detailed accounting for the sale of various possessions. The detail goes beyond what the primary beneficiaries are demanding. Instead, give a fixed amount.

Worse, when you disburse money from an estate, you also need the beneficiaries to acknowledge the disbursements. This is easy when the beneficiaries are family or when the amount is large. But the last piddly disbursements? Many charities won't bother to acknowledge the last small amounts.

But when you give a fixed amount to a charity, all these problems go away. If a charity is to get $50K, then once you send them a check, they have no more "dog" in the fight. And they will happily sign the needed documents for the large hunk of money.

Source: my sister has dealt with this far too often in the last three years.