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Planned Giving for Financial Advisors

Why Planned Giving is Important to Your Clients

Simply put, planned giving enables people — your clients, our donors — to make large, meaningful gifts to the organizations that reflect their beliefs and values while leaving a unique legacy to memorialize those values and beliefs by supporting them during their lifetime and beyond.

Planned giving‘s flexible gift options meet the financial, personal and family goals of philanthropically-minded clients in every situation — young or old, extraordinarily wealthy or those with only modest financial means.

  • Planned gifts can create income for your client.
  • They can be revocable to meet changing circumstances.
  • They can be combined with outright charitable gifts.
  • They can offer an immediate charitable deduction.
  • They will create a philanthropic impact your clients may never have thought possible.

In other words, your clients can create a meaningful charitable legacy while taking care of themselves and their loved ones — and they may be surprised to learn that they can do it all without sacrificing their quality of life.

Common questions and concerns

  • “Wouldn‘t it be easier and more helpful for my client to make smaller annual gifts?”
  • “Large charitable gifts and plans are for wealthy people. My clients are ‘regular people’ who do not have money to give away.”
  • “My practice is about teaching people to invest their money wisely in order to expand their assets. If I recommend giving it away my clients will get nervous.”

When most people think of supporting a charity, they think of outright gifts of cash (by check or credit card) or a gift of a few shares of stock in response to a request for contributions. These outright gifts (often called “current use” or “annual” gifts) are crucial dollars for a charity because they are immediately available for the charitable purposes your client wants to support.

Your client benefits from an immediate tax deduction and has the satisfaction of knowing that the gift is having an immediate impact. They‘re easy, too — your client can just write a check or call in a credit card number, or give a broker the stock transfer instructions.

But your client‘s cash and stock also help fund your client‘s day-to-day needs, and it is likely that a cash or stock gift will be smaller and have less impact on a charity and on your client‘s overall financial plan than a planned gift. Planned gifts allow your client to create a meaningful legacy and satisfy personal, financial and estate planning goals.

By limiting gifts to just cash or stock, your client is unknowingly limiting her philanthropic dreams. It‘s true that planned gifts require more thought and planning than cash gifts, but without them, your client is missing the opportunity to realize tax benefits and make an important, significant difference in the lives of others.

There are ways to introduce these options that will not make your clients nervous. In fact, advisors who are able to present many attractive options in a knowledgeable manner will enhance their image in the eyes of their clients.

Here‘s a little insight from the front lines of planned giving: planned giving officers who are able to present these options in a knowledgeable manner often hear your clients asking why their advisors have not mentioned these opportunities to them during the planning process.

Planned giving is not simply about giving money away. It is a host of options to enhance your practice and your clients‘ planning that results in benefits to your client and the causes that are most dear to them.

Planned giving can be one of adult life‘s few authentic win-wins!