We welcome back a special guest on the blog: Stelter’s Senior Gift Planning Consultant, Lynn Gaumer, J.D. Lynn shares with us some important industry updates.
1. 2018 Burk Donor Survey Report
Penelope Burk, a fundraiser and renowned author and speaker, recently presented her research on the factors that influence donors to give. The report includes a wealth of information on donor behaviors, marketing strategies and the benefits of having a dedicated relationship between a donor and a development officer. Get a free executive summary or purchase a complete report here. The 2019 Burk Donor Survey Report is scheduled to be released in December 2019.
2. IRA Charitable Beneficiaries: Collecting the Proceeds Is Now Easier Thanks to NACGP
According to the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners, 43 percent of organizations experienced difficulty in collecting beneficiary proceeds from one or more IRA administrators.
The IRA administrator may request, for example, that your organization open a stretch or inherited IRA account to receive proceeds. In these cases, the IRA administrator requires personal information such as a driver’s license number, the Social Security number of one of the officers of the charity and a home address.
In response to this growing concern, the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners created the Charitable Beneficiary IRA Distribution Resource Center.
The new site has informative articles and a sample letter to send to IRA administrators in the event you need to make your case in order to collect IRA proceeds in a timely manner.
3. Updated Mortality Tables Coming
The Internal Revenue Code requires the Secretary of the Treasury to update the mortality tables at least every 10 years. These tables are used to compute the charitable deduction for split interest gifts, such as charitable gift annuities and charitable remainder trusts.
The last time new mortality tables were published was in April 2009. Stelter will update our Gift Illustrator tool and our content in a timely manner once this information is released.
4. Marketing Trend: Target Donors Who Use Donor Advised Funds
Donor advised funds date back to the Great Depression, yet they were not actively promoted until the early 1990s when Fidelity established Fidelity Charitable. In the early years, many nonprofits were hesitant about or even averse to promoting them.
Things have changed. Donor advised funds are now the fastest-growing source of philanthropy, accounting for more than $121 billion in total charitable assets. According to National Philanthropic Trust’s 2019 Donor Advised Fund Report:
- Contributions to donor advised funds totaled $37.1 billion in 2018, up 20 percent from the prior year.
- Grants from DAFs to qualified charities totaled $23.42 billion.
Did your organization receive any of these grants? Would you know if you did?
If you haven’t started asking for gifts from donor advised funds, you need to ASAP.
Start by educating donors on the basics, such as how and where to set up an account and how to recommend grants to your organization.
MARKETING TIP: Dive deeper by sending targeted marketing to donors who already give from donor advised funds. This touchpoint could include information on naming your organization as a beneficiary, creating a family legacy or using their donor advised fund account as a beneficiary of a retirement plan asset or a charitable remainder trust. This will give your organization the opportunity to reach your DAF donors in a meaningful way.
You can access National Philanthropic Trust’s new 2019 Donor Advised Fund Report here.
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This excerpt is one of the many useful articles that can be found in our most recent edition of Expert Insights: Your Resource for Planned Giving Trends and Updates. Stelter provides this quarterly e-publication at no cost to its nonprofit partners.
Have questions? Comment to ask our expert, Lynn Gaumer!