Sharpe Blog

Part 1 of this blog series covered: Myth #1: Planned giving hurts annual giving. Myth #2: All planned gifts are deferred gifts. Myth #3: Planned giving is only for older, wealthier donors. Read it here. Part 2 covered: Myth #4: Planned giving is not appropriate for a new organization. Myth #5: I have to know …Read More

By Grant Miller I fell in love with language as a teenager—somewhere between Kurt Vonnegut’s “The Sirens of Titan” and Flannery O’Connor’s “Wise Blood.” I knew I wanted to be a writer before I even grasped the fundamentals of how sentences worked (I had probably learned them at some point, but I wasn’t always the …Read More

Read Part 1, “Mining Donor Data for Dollars,” here. Many organizations rely on wealth screening as a primary data strategy. While useful, wealth screening has limitations. Wealth screening typically assigns donors a “score” based on factors like income, net worth and giving history. This can be helpful for identifying prospects during capital campaigns, but it …Read More

In charitable organizations, few assets are as valuable—and as underutilized—as the organization’s donor data. Many nonprofits focus primarily on campaigns, messaging and outreach strategies, and the data used to inform those efforts is often limited to insights on high-capacity donors, rather than a comprehensive view of the full donor base. Campaigns, messaging and outreach strategies …Read More

Part one of this blog series covered: Myth #1: Planned giving hurts annual giving. Myth #2: All planned gifts are deferred gifts. Myth #3: Planned giving is only for older, wealthier donors. Read it here. Here, we will look at three additional myths that some organizations cite as reasons they cannot (or should not) start …Read More

As the use of AI in the workplace becomes more prevalent, it’s important to be aware of both its efficiencies and its shortcomings. We asked Sharpe Group technical consultant Chris Woehrle to cite a recent court case where a professional’s use of AI played a role and what we can learn from it. Tax Court …Read More

With the last several years of unexpected government funding cuts and a global pandemic, it has become increasingly clear that nonprofits must have planned giving as part of their fundraising strategy. Surprisingly, there are many reasons leadership doesn’t support adding a dedicated planned giving component to their fundraising efforts, some of which are based on …Read More

The most recent Bank of America Study of Philanthropy, published by the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, comes on the heels of sweeping tax changes contained in 2025’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. You can read a summary of the report here. At Sharpe Group, our philosophy—and practice—is to inform fundraisers about tax policies and …Read More

By Chris Woehrle The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) imposes a floor and a cap on charitable giving for tax years beginning in 2026. For all itemizers, a new 0.5% floor applies, meaning the first 0.5% of AGI contributed generates no tax benefit. Only the excess of contributions over the floor generates tax savings. …Read More