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Real Estate and Planned Giving

Recently, a client of mine set up some sort of widget on their website to encourage gifts of real estate – and guess what – we have too many leads, most of whom are not connected to the charity and were just looking online for ways to gift their unwanted real estate.

Apparently, a lot of people have property that they would like to give away (most of which sane charities may reject for various reasons). But, this phenomenon may be hint to big opportunities being overlooked by most in the fundraising world.

Our latest new webinar – Real Estate and Planned Giving – is scheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday 9/25 at 12 NOON EASTERN).

In this session, we will cover the basics of real estate gifts, and then go through Bargain Sales, Life Estates, CRTs, CGAs and Lead Trusts as vehicles for creative planned gifts funded with real estate.

Our goal for this session is to expose you the breadth of creative ideas for real estate while showing you how to present these ideas to your donors.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO OR TO REGISTER

Also, our next Planned Giving Boot Camp dates are set:

Fall 2019 Planned Giving Boot Camp – October 23rd thru November 27th. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO REGISTER

And, finally, check out the recordings for our recent sessions for September 2019:

Interested in our prior webinar: Is the Great Wealth Transfer Finally Here? (my annual search for the $41 trillion dollar wealth transfer as predicted in the mid-1990’s). In over 50 data slides, I reviewed all of the latest fundraising and planned giving numbers from Giving USA, the VSE, the IRS (focusing on the itemizer question), and updated demographic projections. Just $35 for the recording and PowerPoint (so you can create your own presentations with the data). CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE THE RECORDING
Interested in our prior webinar: Planned Giving for High Net Wealth Prospects? This is a new session devoted entirely to planned giving vehicle discussions with High Net Wealth individuals (assets of $5 million+). We will go through tax and planning issues facing this level of prospects and offer a handful of new approaches to Planned Giving that should spark their interest in a structured gift. CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE THE RECORDING

As always, thank you for considering our programs and services! Please feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Jonathan Gudema, Esq.
Principal, Planned Giving Advisors, LLC
jonathan@plannedgivingadvisors.com
www.plannedgivingadvisors.com

Q & A in Planned Giving Tomorrow – IRAs, RMDs, and QCDs – Familiar with these?

Image result for q & a Recently, I’ve starting submitting for the Q & A section in Planned Giving Tomorrow – Here’s my first submission….

QUESTION

We are looking at some RMD info related to Jane’s IRA account, and we are assuming that the school satisfies the QCD requirement, but just want to check.

ANSWER

Highly focused people (usually the successful ones) often miss the easy stuff in their focus on the bottom line: raising money now. The question above came to me via email from a top capital campaign consultant. He really knows his stuff. And yet, he had to ask me what RMD and QCD meant!

Do you know?

RMD is Required Minimum Distribution. That is an amount you are required (as an individual over age 70.5) to withdraw from your IRA and other qualified retirement accounts annually.

Why is this so important?

The IRA charitable rollover provision (which is, by the way, PERMANENT now if you hadn’t heard!) allows donors age 70.5 and older to give up to $100,000 to your charity directly from their IRAs. It doesn’t work for other retirement accounts—yet. It just so happens that the law allows donors to direct their RMDs (which would be fully taxable to them) to your charity without any taxes. This assumes your charity is QCD eligible.

You know that one, right? QCD means Qualified Charitable Distributions. If you are a regular charity – not a Donor Advised Fund or a Supporting Organization—you are more than likely QDC eligible. In a nutshell, using the charitable rollover provision gives donors an opportunity to support a cause they care about and avoid taxes on their RMD! Donors in this age range get this. You should, too, as these can be easy $100,000 gifts. Even if your donor has already taken their RMDs (which you can’t un-take), using an IRA to make a gift to charity is still a great idea. Talk it up with your donors!

If you have interesting questions that you wouldn’t mind being published in this blog and/or in Planned Giving Tomorrow, email your Q’s to me at jonathan@plannedgivingadvisors.com. And, check out Planned Giving Tomorrow by clicking here!

DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT OUR SUMMER LINE-UP OF WEBINAR PROGRAMS!

Largest Single Gift – $6.24 Million – to Henry Street Settlement

This very nice woman was a legal secretary until age 96 – probably never someone who stood out for fundraisers to fawn over. (CLICK HERE OR THE PICTURE TO SEE THE STORY IN THE NEW YORK TIMES)

Yet, she just left close to $9 million to fund scholarships, with the Henry Street Settlement receiving $6.24 million, their largest single gift (probably by far) via a charitable bequest (i.e. one of the many unknown planned giving donors who quietly make a huge impact after their lives).

Check your nonprofit org’s records. Who’s made the 5 largest gifts to the institution?

I would be surprised if bequests or other planned giving options don’t comprise at least 4 out of your top 5.

Fundraisers and heads of nonprofits – take note! Sylvia Bloom – the woman in the picture – actually left most of her estate to be used for scholarships at the discretion of her niece (who happens to be on the board of the Henry Street Settlement)!

Sylvia and her niece are both incredible people. But, just think about this. What if Sylvia had been one of your long term direct mail donors – I am guessing that she supported plenty of charities during her life.

Imagine if your org had any planned giving efforts – maybe planned giving newsletters or other marketing that encouraged Sylvia to consider your organization as a recipient of her legacy giving. Then image if your organization didn’t do anything in planned giving.

Think about the missed opportunity. Sylvia probably didn’t receive much direct planned giving content and opted to allow her niece full discretion over her legacy.

For nonprofits in America who been around awhile (15 or more years) to not engage in any meaningful planned giving efforts is just irresponsible.

The country is aging fast. Your data base is probably aging faster. Planned giving is really the only sensible way to make sure your institution has a decent chance to share in estates like Sylvia’s.

So where do you start? Check out our Planned Giving Boot Camp 6-part webinar crash course by CLICKING HERE.

Or, our Summer 2018 line up of training programs! CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE

Ok, so I have to plug more courses at any chance I have. Seriously, these courses are all designed to put immediately useful tools and ideas into your hands. You’ll learn about creating your own Legacy Opener (patent pending;). I’ll tell you which planned giving marketing options work and which don’t! Which vehicles are appropriate and which are not! And, not too much on the technical end!

Thank you for making it to the end of this post! I wonder how many readers actually get this far!

Time to get your planned giving act together!

Related image Baby boomers getting older….

The wealth transfer is coming….

Blah, blah, blah. The same old, same old and no real difference in the numbers for planned giving. Right?

I know what I am about to say is self-serving (this is a blog and I’m constantly promoting myself and my services) but if you have a minute, read what I am about to write carefully.

The estate tax exemption just doubled (i.e. people can leave more to family estate tax free). Bad for planned giving?

Wrong. Amazing for planned giving!!!

Why?

People with means are going to their estate planning attorneys. Considering options. Redoing their estate plans.

How often does this happen with your typical planned giving prospect? You usually have no idea unless someone tells you.

So, I am telling you this (from my estate planning practice – more than half of my business): your wealthier donors are meeting with their estate planning attorneys NOW.

That means NOW is the time to make sure they are considering YOUR institution for some sort of planned gift!

In other words, you need to wake up your sleeping planning giving program. You need to train your staff (click here to see more on my upcoming training!). You need to put some budget towards planned giving.

Meaning: it’s time to get your planned giving act in order! The boomers will start moving on. There are a lot more of them than their predecessors and they actually have a lot of money. Planned Giving will grow dramatically in the next few years. You and your organization need to get ready!