Staff Bios
David G. Coon, J.D. [ Email ]
Executive Director of Planned Giving
David received his A.B. in History from Princeton in 1974 and his J.D. in 1977 from the University of Utah. Before coming to Brown in 2003, David was a practicing attorney in Providence for over twenty-five years. He concentrated his practice almost exclusively in estate planning and the administration of trusts and estates. He practiced extensively in the Rhode Island Probate Courts and developed a particular reputation as a skilled draftsman of documents implementing complex estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax strategies. He is a member of the Rhode Island and American Bar Associations and a member of the Bar of the U.S. Tax Court. He has taught the course in Income Taxation of Trusts and Estates in the Masters of Taxation program at Bryant University, has written on Estate Planning for the Rhode Island Bar Journal, and has presented frequently to members of the Rhode Island Bar on estate planning matters.
David has been the Executive Director of Brown’s Office of Planned Giving since January of 2003, having been hired to supervise Brown’s Planned Giving team during the recent Campaign for Academic Enrichment. The Planned Giving office raises life income gifts and identifies donors who have included Brown in their estate planning. The office also supervises Brown’s relationship with probate estates and trusts that include bequests to Brown. Highlights of David’s work at Brown have included: coordinating the structuring of Sidney Frank’s $100 million charitable remainder annuity trust; assisting in the negotiation and documentation of the $100 million gift from the Warren Alpert Foundation for the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University; recommending and supervising on Brown’s behalf the revision of a $5 million short term charitable remainder annuity trust to permit an early six figure distribution to Brown; recommending and supervising on Brown’s behalf the termination, and distribution to Brown’s endowment, of a $1.4 million charitable foundation; and soliciting, closing and preparing the governing instruments for several six- and seven-figure charitable remainder trusts. During David’s tenure the University has received more than $185 million of bequest intention pledges, more than $120 million in life income gifts, almost $290 million from bequests and more than $113 million from the termination of life income gifts.
Elizabeth B. Oliveira, J.D. [ Email ]
Associate Director of Planned Giving
Elizabeth received her B.A. from Providence College in 2002, magna cum laude, with a major in Political Science and a minor in Business Studies. She then received her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law in 2005. She is a member of both the Massachusetts and Rhode Island Bar Associations.
Elizabeth began her legal career at the Providence firm of Davis, Kilmarx, Swan & Bowling LLP, and worked there until 2008. There, her legal work was focused on trust and estates, both drafting and administration, along with business succession planning. She then moved to the Providence office of the national law firm Nixon Peabody LLP in 2008. She worked in the mergers and acquisitions field, focusing on corporate formation and governance, contract negotiations and commercial finance.
In 2010, she took on her position of Associate Director within the Planned Giving Department at Brown University. Since her start as Associate Director in July of 2010, she has worked on all types of planned gifts funded with a variety of assets, including bequests, annuities, pooled income funds and charitable remainder trusts of up to a six and seven-figure value. She also frequently works with donors, attorneys and financial advisors to draft gift agreements and bequest language for inclusion within estate plans. She also assists with the administration of gifts from donors and estates.