It's not scary. I swear.

My lifelong career goal is to take the intimidation out of planned giving programs by creating comfortable marketing strategies, simplifying the language used to describe specific planned gifts, and highlighting the tax advantages of charitable giving as an estate planning tool. 

My goals are: one, to present these concepts in a way that is both easy to understand and retain; second, to promote the creation of planned giving programs to a wider range of nonprofit organizations; and third, to encourage significant legacy gifts to charities of all sizes regardless of whether the donor happens to be dedicated to the specific nonprofit or they are simply looking to utilize all of the tax advantages available to them.

This blog explains the general concepts of estate planning, creating a planned giving program, and the different planned gift vehicles. There are, of course caveats, depending on the individual specific asset structure, financial positions, and tax liabilities. Fundraisers don’t provide financial or tax advice to individuals, but fundraisers can make donors aware of charitable gift vehicles that have significant tax benefits. 

Finance professionals and the IRS have created their own language to describe types of investments, strategies, and products. The language they use isn’t exactly “user friendly.” If I were to guess, I would bet these professionals like it when they know things the rest of us don’t quite understand! Who doesn’t like to be the one “in the know?”

Here’s a perfect example of how the IRS and financial professionals make a relatively simple, and wonderfully tax advantageous planned gift, seem overly complicated. 

The first example, “The Concept,” explains the gift in simple, easy to understand language. The next two examples, “Finance Language,” and “In-the-Know Jargon”use language that makes the gift seem complicated. My goal is for you to quickly discover that once you remove the exclusionary financial jargon, the common concepts are straightforward and easily understandable tools for your donors. 

The Concept: People who are 73 or older are required to take a minimum distribution from their IRA fund. That payment is added to their total taxable income for the year. Not everyone needs that cash, but regardless, they are required to take it. If they donate a part or all of these funds, they fulfill the IRA distribution requirement but don’t have to pay income taxes on the funds. Consequently, they reduce the adjusted gross income and reduce their income tax liability.

Finance Language: Use Qualified Charitable Distributions for Required Minimum Distributions from Traditional Individual Retirement Accounts.

In-the-Know Jargon: Use QCD’s for your RMD from your IRA.

I hope the resources found in this blog help to demystify the general concepts surrounding estate planning, common planned gifts, the benefits of charitable giving to reduce an income tax or estate tax burden, the different types of estate plans, and the cadence of the estate settlement process. My goal is to help development teams gain the confidence needed to bolster their planned giving programs! Reread sections as you need them. Steal the language. It is yours to use in whatever ways allow you to learn from it and put it into practice within your planned giving program. 

Finding the forest through the trees.