Sharpe Insights Articles

The last several decades have brought tremendous changes and advances to society in general and to the field of gift planning in particular. As a newly minted planned giving officer in the 1970s, available computer resources at my university employer consisted of a UNIVAC Sigma Nine mainframe computer that performed its functions by punching and …Read More

As an attorney, financial advisor, and former fund development executive, John Goodwin has spent most of his career helping people meet their personal and philanthropic goals. In this “Gift Planner Profile,” Mr. Goodwin shares his thoughts on the giving habits of the ultra-wealthy and how proposed estate tax changes may affect the giving of significant …Read More

The economic turmoil in recent months has left many savers and investors shaken. As consumer confidence erodes, so has “contributor confidence” among some prospective major donors. Historically, the stock market and interest rates have moved in a counter-cyclical fashion — as interest rates fell the stock market often rose and vice versa.This general trend is …Read More

Americans worth $5 million or more are active contributors to charitable causes, regularly volunteer for charitable organizations, and also include charities in their estate plans, according to results of a recent report. Conducted for Bankers Trust Private Banking by Boston College researcher Paul Schervish, the study entitled “Wealth With Responsibility Study 2000” focuses on approximately …Read More

In this month’s “Gift Planner Profile” Give & Take talks with Valerie Kuramoto, assistant vice president for development at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Ms. Kuramoto, formerly in annual fund and campaign development at Cornell, discusses why she moved into planned giving and how she has enhanced the planned giving program at Mary Washington. …Read More

In the 1970s and ’80s, charities had a pretty clear picture of the “The Face of America’s Elderly.” The typical planned giving prospect was a member of the Depression era and could be approached as such. Those persons born during the first decades of the last century were deeply affected by the economic and social …Read More

Over the years, we have worked with many people who were new to the process of charitable gift planning. As they begin, the issues related to types of properties donors can give, the tax consequences of gifts, and the economics of structuring gifts can seem overwhelming. Add to this the multitude of motivations that underlie …Read More

The IRS recently released data summarizing much of the information included in tax returns filed for estate tax purposes in 1998. There is a wealth of information contained in these reports that is of interest to those persons responsible for encouraging bequests and similar gifts. When read in conjunction with information recently published by the …Read More

Much has been written on the importance of effectively communicating the concept of charitable bequests to donors and prospective donors to charitable organizations and institutions of many different types. Why? Because gifts by bequest have consistently comprised the vast majority of gift planning funds, even for the most sophisticated gift planning programs — as much …Read More

Over the past few years much has been written about the aging of America and how a larger pool of older Americans will create, among other things, a golden age of philanthropy through unprecedented amounts of assets passed via estates. Consider the fact that the portion of the American population over the age of 65 …Read More