Having benefitted from AMS throughout my career, I feel it is important to give back so that others in our community might have similar opportunities. Aside from the challenges, excitement, and importance of our science, I have always valued the sense of community that characterizes our field. The small size of our community, relative to many other sciences, has always appealed to me. Through its specialty and larger annual meetings, AMS enabled me, starting as a graduate student, to regularly network with colleagues, many of whom became collaborators and friends.

The contacts I made through AMS meetings and through the volunteer activities it offered me were essential to the growth of my career. Nowadays, through its expanded use of social media, AMS is finding new ways to enhance communication across our community. As it embraces these ways and other approaches to engage with its members, AMS is well poised to enter its second century with a firm resolve to benefit the society we all serve.

With many different ways to contribute, Michele and I decided to take advantage of an approach that is a win for both AMS and us. We established a deferred charitable gift annuity by donating appreciated stock that had grown over the years. In doing so, we enjoyed an immediate tax deduction and avoided paying capital gains tax, while ensuring a guaranteed income stream—some of which will come to us tax-free—for the rest of our lives. Giving through a deferred charitable gift annuity was simple and beneficial to us and to AMS.