Letters to a Young Gift Planner

In 1903, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke answered letters from 19-year-old Franz Kappus, who hoped to become a poet himself. Kappus published Rilke's advice in Letters to a Young Poet, a book that is less about writing and more about living like a poet. At this year's National Conference on Philanthropic Planning, staff of the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning (www.pppnet.org) followed Rilke's lead and asked a room full of experienced charitable planners what advice they'd give to young people beginning careers as nonprofit gift planners or as estate and financial planners who advise philanthropists. This deck captures common threads in their responses. We invite you to share it with young people whom you feel would be great philanthropy advocates and guides.

2013 NCPP Wraps Up

Attendees at the 2013 NCPP Opening Dinner

Over 750 gift planning professionals from across the nation convened in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota for three days of education, networking, and lasting memories during the 2013 National Conference on Philanthropic Planning, October 15-17. 

Twitter was abuzz with attendee and exhibitor interaction. Attendees really enjoyed seeing their tweets on the Tweetwall in front of registration. Exhibitors held a friendly competition of who could be at the top of the leader board. 

2013 NCPP Photos - View Now
Take a peek at your colleagues during the conference. See shots from the opening dinner and keynote with Kevin Kling, breakout speakers, and receptions.

2013 NCPP Storify - View Now
Want to see what happened at the conference? Or just take a look at at a run down day-by-day as attendees and exhibitors interacted online. 

2013 NCPP Speaker Papers - Log in Now
Many speakers have made their papers available. All 2013 NCPP attendees can gain access to these papers through the PPP Community online. And remember, now all current PPP members can access the 2012 NCPP speaker papers in the Community. To see 10 years of conference papers, just click the Library tab on any page in the e-community and select the National Conference Archive folder.

Ignite
If you're not familiar with Ignite, this presentation style is focused on enlightening the audience, but quick. Each presenter had exactly five minutes to share an idea, passion, or experience that keeps them excited about their work, using only 20 presentation slides that auto-advanced every 15 seconds. The room was packed! Click on the links below to see photos or a video of the presentation and get enlightened...quick.

Everything I Know About Philanthropy I Learned in a Dumpster
Phil Cubeta, Wallace Chair in Philanthropy - The American College


Life's Little Cliches through the Lens of Fundraising
Karen Cooper, Director of Principal Gifts - Plan International USA


Technology That Doesn't Kill Us Helps Us Raise More Planned Gifts
Gary Pforzheimer, President - PG Calc



Personalized Philanthropy After the Fall
Steve Meyers, Vice President, Center for Personalized Philanthropy - American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science


Mark your calendars now for the 2014 NCPP, October 14-16 in Anaheim, California.

2013 NCPP via Storify

National Estate Planning Awareness Week

This week we're celebrating the 5th annual National Estate Planning Awareness Week and encouraging everyone to spread the word on the local level. 

The goals of NEPAW are to: 

• Substantially create financial awareness and help to improve financial literacy. 
• Alert the public why having a current and up-to-date estate and financial plan is an important financial responsibility not only to themselves but to their families and loved ones.
• Motivate the public to take action to get and keep their financial house in order with an up-to-date estate and financial plan. 
• Help the public find the right professionals to cost-effectively help establish and keep their financial and estate plans up-to-date. 

Below are ways you or your local council can participate:

1. Place estate and financial planning editorial content on your website, in your newsletters, social media groups, local newspapers, and radio/television/web-based shows.
2. Host or take part in community-wide programs built around estate and financial planning. 
3. Circulate financial awareness campaign materials and the Press & Industry Media Kits and Guides, to your members, colleagues, associates, and other parties as you see appropriate and encourage them to support and participate in these important events. 
4. Be sure to email us your articles, checklists, ads, and seminar/webinar activity notices so we can highlight them and you in the 2013 National Estate Planning Awareness Week Campaign Report and Scrapbook. 

At last week's National Conference on Philanthropic Planning, The Stelter Company presented the results of a new survey of advisors who hold the Accredited Estate Planner® (AEP®) designation. This study finds that many advisors are quite willing to collaborate with charitable planners, although not necessarily in the ways traditionally preferred by the charitable planners. The most fruitful areas for collaboration, according to advisors, are:

• Showing clients they are willing to work as a team to formalize a planned gift (53% are interested in this)
• Raising awareness of estate planning (51% are interested in this)
• Explaining the tax advantages of planned gifts (47% are interested in this)

AEP®s surveyed in the Stelter study were less interested in receiving the following assistance from nonprofit planners:

• Raising awareness of the importance of planned gifts (38% are interested in this)
• Receiving technical information on planned gifts (33% are interested in this)
• Ongoing assistance in analyzing gift transactions (31% are interested in this)
• Assisting the advisor on language to be included in documents (31% are interested in this)

Did you miss our conversation with one of this year's honorary co-chairs, Paul Schervish? If so, click here to read the post.

Start planning now for National Financial Literacy Month in April. We'll send more information your way early next year.

Happy NEPAW! Hug an Estate Planner!

October 21 through 27 is National Estate Planning Awareness Week, a special time of year when we pause to consider a subject that warms a gift planner’s heart: wealth transfer. In 1999, Paul Schervish and John Havens, of Boston College, released their conservative estimate that $6 trillion would be transferred to charity via bequests between 1998 and 2052. The nonprofit community has been working and watching for those bequests ever since. But in an interview with The Journal of Gift Planning in 2006, Paul Schervish noted, “We’ve said from the beginning that people from the nonprofit world and donors could make our predictions invalid by shifting giving from estate to lifetime giving.”

Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Paul is an honorary co-chair of National Estate Planning Awareness Week, and when I called to congratulate him, he reminded me that the very detailed microsimulation model that yielded the wealth transfer projections was a product of the 1990s, when estate plans really were the conduit for most large planned gifts. “Financial planning is a place where charitable planning tends to happen now,” Paul told me. In the near future, he and John Havens will publish a new national study that is expected to show the trend toward inter vivos wealth transfer for high net worth Americans. He’s optimistic that wherever transfers are structured, charities can expect to see increased giving. “When people have more to give, and they have a choice between giving more to their heirs or to charity, we already see a tendency to give more to charity,” Paul told me.  “It’s really all about the economy—is it operating in a way that allows people the maximum ability to give?”

If financial planners and accountants become the primary gatekeepers for charitable giving, where does that leave us during National Estate Planning Awareness Week? Even low net worth people give to charity, and we know that bequests from smaller estates are still an important source of income for most charitable organizations. Gift planners still need the “legacy ask,” and they need supportive estate planners advising people of all wealth levels. 

At the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning in a few weeks, the Stelter Company will present the results of a new survey of advisors who hold the Accredited Estate Planner® (AEP®) designation. That study finds that many advisors are quite willing to collaborate with charitable planners, although not necessarily in the ways traditionally preferred by the charitable planners. The most fruitful areas for collaboration, according to advisors, are:

• Showing clients they are willing to work as a team to formalize a planned gift (53% are interested in this)
• Raising awareness of estate planning (51% are interested in this)
• Explaining the tax advantages of planned gifts (47% are interested in this)of pla 

AEP®s surveyed in the Stelter study were less interested in receiving the following assistance from nonprofit planners:

• Raising awareness of the importance of planned gifts (38% are interested in this)
• Receiving technical information on planned gifts (33% are interested in this)
• Ongoing assistance in analyzing gift transactions (31% are interested in this)
• Assisting the advisor on language to be included in documents (31% are interested in this)

Paul Schervish would say that one thing charitable planners can bring to estate—and financial—planning is their skill in facilitating “discernment,” which he defines as a process of “conscientious self-reflection” that helps to balance material quantity of choice with spiritual quality of choice. Fundraisers seldom have the access to a donor’s financial condition that advisors have, so they should view this balancing act as a collaborative process. “People need to understand their financial capacity first, and then how their personal history motivates them to care for others,” Paul explains. “Discerned giving is bigger than ‘planned giving’ in a traditional sense. It isn’t about a particular vehicle or tax outcome—it’s about financial capability and moral compass.”

Do you have a story about successful collaboration between gift and estate planners? Or an idea about a way to participate in National Estate Planning Awareness Week? How are your donors or clients making creative use of their estate plans for charitable giving?

Links:

“Millionaires and the Millennium:  New Estimates of the Forthcoming Wealth Transfer and the Prospects for a Golden Age of Philanthropy.” John J. Havens and Paul G. Schervish (1999)

“Why the $41 Trillion Wealth Transfer Is Still Valid: A Review of Challenges and Questions,” John J. Havens and Paul G. Schervish, The Journal of Gift Planning, 2003

“Today's Wealth Holder and Tomorrow's Giving: The New Dynamics of Wealth and Philanthropy” Paul G. Schervish , The Journal of Gift Planning, 2005

A Smart Plan, A Better World, a consumer-oriented site on the basics of estate planning, including charitable planning from NAEPC and the Stelter Company.

Estate Planning Answers, a site from the NAEPC Education Foundation to provide consumer-oriented advice for planning that responds to life stages and events.

“Involving Advisors in Philanthropic Planning: Recommendations from Research” Stephen P.Johnson, The Journal of Gift Planning, 2005

“Best Practices: Asking the ‘Philanthropic Question’" Charlie Collier, Phil Cubeta; King McGlaughon; Katelyn Quynn; Eileen Wilhem. The Journal of Gift Planning, 2005

“Wealth and the Family: Asking Essential Questions,” Charlie Collier, National Conference on Planned Giving, 2007

About Barbara Yeager

Barbara Yeager is the director of operations for PPP. She has worked for the organization since 1991. Her responsibilities include managing research projects for the national organization and for councils, managing education and networking programs for the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning, the Council Conversations series, and the Leadership Institute. She moderates groups in the PPP e-community and works with writers to develop original content for publication by PPP. Barbara has a master’s degree in library and information science and worked as a public librarian and as a technical writer and systems analyst before joining the PPP staff. In her community, she is a Girl Scout leader, a community gardener and volunteers as a costumer for community theater groups. 

Skipping to the Last Chapter

Our latest survey of PPP members showed that even among the people who are most convinced of the benefits of “planned” giving, one-third have not personally made a planned gift. Half of those who haven’t made a planned gift are over age 50. Since we know that roughly half of Americans die without a will, we suspect that a lot of PPP members who haven’t made charitable plans, haven’t done any planning at all. What’s going on here? Surely people whose work involves encouraging others to plan should be able to say they’ve done it themselves.

Russell James (a professor at Texas Tech University and member of the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning faculty) tells us that bequest decision making is like visualizing the final chapter of your own autobiography. Stories can help people get beyond the natural inclination to avoid thinking about their own death. We’ve noticed, however, the gift planners often tell stories that focus on the financial benefits of a gift, many of which kick in for the donor’s estate—after his death. Or they focus on benefits to charitable programs, which also traditionally require the gift to “mature.”

These donor stories are borrowed from the websites of two nonprofit organizations (donors’ names and a few details have been changed). If you’re one of the PPP members who hasn’t made your own planned gift, which story is more likely to motivate you?

When Mrs. Sara Green first met with her Regional Director and the Vice President of Planned Giving, almost ten years ago to discuss a gift to the Institute, she considered supporting ongoing areas of research, particularly in health-related fields. Sara, though interested in these projects, had rather unconventional interests. She wanted to support research for which scientists struggled to find funds—scientists whose ideas and dreams hadn’t a prayer of receiving financial support because they boldly explored the far frontiers of science and technology, without the promise of immediate, marketable, or commercial application. She wanted to honor the Institute’s tradition of unfettered scientific inquiry.

And so the idea of the Discovery Endowment Fund was born. Discovery Endowment Funds provide scientists with "dream gifts" to pursue their curiosity-driven interests to the fullest. Sara has created the John and Sara Green Discovery Endowment Fund. She is proud that the Fund will honor her late husband, while supporting such forward-looking, imaginative, and innovative research….

According to Sara, "Born on the eve of World War II, my most cherished hope and fondest dream has always been of world peace. Through its world-class basic scientific research, reaching to man’s unknown future horizons, the Institute can and will have a singularly profound effect on humanity. By providing ways to feed the hungry, improve health and the quality of living, world conflict will be reduced, and peace in our lifetime can remain our fervent prayer. To realize and fund its future miracles, I call upon people of all faiths—worldwide—who may read, see, or hear my words…The world needs this Institute."

Or this…?

Peter Reid understands better than most the value of education. It was education, made possible by his family's sacrifices and his own hard work, that took him from a poor village to a successful career. He also credits his wife for supporting him.

Peter scaled back to part-time work in 1986 to manage their investments and in 1990 retired completely. He has structured some of their retirement assets, including an IRA, to benefit the University. He says, "An IRA is a smart way to help the University since it's such a highly taxed asset if given to heirs."

He has also made the University the sole beneficiary of a whole life insurance policy. And he has two other policies designated primarily for their heirs. Should there be a claim, however, a portion would support two endowed funds established in his and his wife’s name: a fellowship and a scholarship benefiting students in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. In addition, the Reid family makes annual gifts to provide current scholarships and fellowships and to build their endowments.

At the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning, you’ll have at least two chances to consider the way you tell your donors’ or clients’ stories. Opening keynoter Kevin Kling will demonstrate the emotional impact that stories can deliver. And Elissa Leif will help you capture stories effectively on video. What’s the most effective donor story that you’ve told, or heard? What motivated you to make your own planned gift?

About Barbara Yeager

Barbara Yeager is the director of operations for PPP. She has worked for the organization since 1991. Her responsibilities include managing research projects for the national organization and for councils, managing education and networking programs for the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning, the Council Conversations series, and the Leadership Institute. She moderates groups in the PPP e-community and works with writers to develop original content for publication by PPP. Barbara has a master’s degree in library and information science and worked as a public librarian and as a technical writer and systems analyst before joining the PPP staff. In her community, she is a Girl Scout leader, a community gardener and volunteers as a costumer for community theater groups. 

What Donors Actually Did—And How They Did It

Much of what we know about charitable planning comes from living people. They tell us in surveys that they’ve included a bequest in their will, or established some type of life income gift. But we also know that some people simply won't disclose about their giving, and, for some others, social desirability bias leads some to exaggerate their philanthropy. After our survey subjects have died, it’s difficult to compare their reports with actual behavior, especially for estates that fall below the estate tax threshold. There are various formulas for estimating the number of Americans who make charitable bequests, but the truth is, we don’t know exactly how many do.

Image courtesty of Ambro /
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It seems we're getting closer. For more than 20 years, the University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Study (HRS) has been tracking a variety of information on more than 30,000 adults aged 50 and above. Among other things, the study reports whether or not participants have a signed and witnessed will (or funded trust) and whether or not there is a charitable component to the will or trust, which allows the tracking of national trends on who has these documents and how this has changed over time. At the 2013 National Conference on Philanthropic Planning, Russell James (Texas Tech University) and Jackie Franey (BNY Mellon Wealth Management) dig into this data to see if more than 10,000 HRS respondents who died during the survey period actually followed through with charitable gifts they said they’d made. 

“We’ve all talked about testamentary provisions, and tried to figure out how many of our donors have charitable plans,” Jackie says, “but this is a statistically-valid tracking of what people said they would do and what they actually did—and how they did it.”  In addition to the HRS data, Jackie and Russell will also analyze more than 1,000 charitable trusts managed by BNY Mellon Wealth Management, to learn about the donors and their strategies for directing assets to charity.

It’s tantalizing to consider what all of this data will reveal about planned gift donors as a national group. How might it apply to one planner’s work? In some cases, the national HRS data confirms what planners observe in their own experience. For example, charitable provisions actually are most likely to be added or dropped when a donor’s family structure changes (e.g., through marriage, widowhood, or the birth of a grandchild), or as time or events increase a donors’ sense of her own mortality. “Plans are largely stagnant across time,” Russell says, “but then are highly likely to change dramatically during a punctuating event, the strongest of which is actually approaching the date of death.”

He also notes that in many donors’ plans, a will is only a "backup" document.  It doesn't control assets with transfer-on-death (TOD) designations or most jointly held assets and accounts.  “Over the last few decades, TOD designations have expanded dramatically and can now transfer the entire estate including, in some states, real estate. ..We are seeing a lot of charitable plans that are part of a signed and executed will where the will exists after death, but is never probated.” In connection with this, Russell says that the relative strength of a living trust in actually generating a post-mortem charitable transfer was “dramatic.”  The HRS findings show a gradual decrease in the usage of wills and increased usage of living trusts.

  

What donors actually did, and how they did it, informs what charities expect to receive, and when to expect it.  What trends have you observed in your planned gift donors and their methods of giving? What information would you like to get from the HRS data? Jackie and Russell will consider your comments as they prepare their presentation to the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning.  

Trending Forward: Emerging Demographics Driving Planned Giving
Thursday, October 17
8:30-9:30 a.m.

Find out more about Jackie Franey and Russell James and download the mobile app.

More resources from Jackie Franey and Russell James

Charitable Bequest Decision-Making: Practical Lessons from Research Findings (Russell James, slides) 

Charitable Bequest Demographics (Russell James, slides)

Miningfor Gold: Sifting the Database to Strike it Rich (Jackie Franey; Anita Lawson, 2008 National Conference on Planned Giving) 

Bleak the New Black? Motivating Donors in the New Normal (Jackie Franey and Sally Rubin, 2012 National Conference on Philanthropic Planning)

About Barbara Yeager

Barbara Yeager is the director of operations for PPP. She has worked for the organization since 1991. Her responsibilities include managing research projects for the national organization and for councils, managing education and networking programs for the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning, the Council Conversations series, and the Leadership Institute. She moderates groups in the PPP e-community and works with writers to develop original content for publication by PPP. Barbara has a master’s degree in library and information science and worked as a public librarian and as a technical writer and systems analyst before joining the PPP staff. In her community, she is a Girl Scout leader, a community gardener and volunteers as a costumer for community theater groups.