Sharpe Group’s new Online Academy debuted last week with Planned Giving #101—An Introduction to Planned Giving, featuring presentations by Sharpe Group Senior Consultants and Senior Vice Presidents Joe Chickey and John Jensen, and me. Development professionals across a broad cross section of charitable missions joined us virtually to learn the tools of charitable gift planning as well as state-of-art techniques in marketing and management of planned giving programs.
Joe and John emphasized how comparatively simple practices can improve both the impact of and dollars attributable to a sustained planned giving effort.
I overviewed two techniques of life-income giving: charitable remainder trusts and charitable gift annuities. One of our audience’s insightful questions centered on the relative unattractiveness of the charitable remainder annuity trust compared to the charitable gift annuity. Even if a gift annuity and annuity trust paid identical rates, the certainty of the gift annuity payment from the issuing charity could be the deciding factor. Coupled with the relative low cost and simplicity of establishing gift annuities, they have proven to be the superior alternative for many donors.
During the course of the four-hour presentation over two days, presenters and attendees shared the primacy of charitable intent over the “selling” of income and transfer tax advantages to donors. While the tax incentives may impact the timing and amount of gifts, donors know tax savings do not pay for gifts.
The Sharpe Group team’s next presentation is on September 29 and 30: Planned Giving #102—Structuring Blended Gifts. Join us to learn how carefully structured combinations of current and deferred gifts enable those balancing multiple financial priorities to make larger gifts than they thought possible even during these unprecedented times of a global pandemic and economic stress. For more information and to register, click here. We look forward to seeing everyone in the virtual classroom.
By Professor Chris Woehrle, Chair & Professor of Tax & Estate Planning Department, College for Financial Planning, Centennial, Colorado
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