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The last quarter of the year doesn’t have to become a choice between encouraging year-end gifts and promoting planned gifts. In fact, the two concepts can co-exist. Use planned giving inserts in year-end gift receipts and donor acknowledgments. A “thank you” rather than an “ask” offers an excellent opportunity to suggest ways to make planned…
2026 could turn out to be another banner year for gifts of stocks and other appreciated securities. Many of these gifts will be received in the closing weeks or days of the year and must be completed for tax purposes, so it pays to be prepared to handle these transactions. Here are some things to…
Whether or not you follow a fiscal year for budgeting purposes, your donors are looking at the traditional calendar when they are considering their charitable giving. It’s the last three months of the year when the majority of gifts are made. Considerations for successful year-end fundraisers: Know who you are communicating with. Plan strategies to…
As a gift planning officer, it’s important to understand the basic tax and financial benefits from well-planned gifts so you can help motivated donors make the most of their charitable gifts at year-end. Keep in mind: The availability of the universal deduction. As a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, there is a…
The generation following the Baby Boomers, Generation X, is poised to be an important fundraising prospect. They were born between 1965 and 1980. Because both parents worked and they came home to empty houses after school, Gen X is frequently called the “latchkey generation.” There are around 65 million Gen Xers in the U.S. They…
Question: My current planned giving provider offers too many choices, and I don’t use most of them. What are three things I should focus on to grow my program? First step: Clean your donor data (update age, wealth, marital status, income, address, deceased, etc.) to maximize time and budget with Sharpe’s Data Services. With our…
Donor advised funds continue to be a major source of revenue for charities. Some key findings from The Annual DAF Report 2025 authored by the DAF Research Collaborative: 1,485 DAF sponsors managed 3.56 million DAF accounts in FY 2024. Grants from DAFs increased by 19% to $64.89 billion in FY 2024. Contributions to DAFs…
Here are some tips to help you stay on course for planned giving success. 1. Stay on top of economic conditions. With fluctuations in the economy and prices continuing to rise, donors will be more receptive to gift plans that offer a greater degree of certainty, like charitable gift annuities or gifts with additional tax…
The dramatic gains of the last 10 years in the capital markets compel trustees of charitable lead annuity trusts (CLATs) to examine whether the moment of commutation has arrived. Private Letter Ruling 202614004 (4/3/2026) addressed the three primary tax risks in attempting a commutation. 1. No Self-Dealing Section 4941 imposes an excise tax on each…
But wait, there’s more! Although we’ve dedicated most of this month’s Insights content to financial literacy, April is also National Poetry Month. (Who else was required to recite The General Prologue from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales in high school? Yay iambic pentameter! Yay Middle English! “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote…”) In honor…