Donor Advised Funds have been around as a charitable giving vehicle, primarily at community foundations, for nearly a century. Over the past decade they have exploded in popularity, and as a result, the second most popular charity last year (measured by donated funds) was the donor advised fund arm of a national investment firm. Learn how donor advised funds are a valuable and creative tool for charitable giving, tax planning and wealth preservation. Working with Austin Community Foundation can also add value for your client relationships, especially the rising millennial generation.

Mike Nellis
President & CEO, Austin Community Foundation

Ellen P. Stewart, Partner
Barnes Lipscomb Stewart & Ott PLLC

Sounds a bit dramatic, right? Almost all of the planned giving literature, publications, and blogs focus on “How to get and keep that big donor” or “What assets should be used and when”.

What you do not see is information designed to help planned giving departments avoid troublesome issues or when to be wary. In other words, what are the traps that can cause you a problem in the planned giving world? How do you minimize risk?
Areas of concern involve any family or business litigation (both before death and as the result of death), complicated family dynamics (think of the rogue son who is now the executor), capacity issues for the donor, complicated assets that do not translate to a planned gift easily, lack of assets, bad drafting and the most common problem area: Will and Trusts contests. All of these issues have one very common thread; very expensive legal bills. And that is something most planned giving departments cannot afford.

Alison Alter, PhD,
Independent Philanthropic Advisor,
Alter Advising, LLC

The Value of a Giving Plan
Ever had the feeling that your or your client’s giving has become reactive, unfocused and ineffective? A giving plan is one way to become more intentional about where to give, how much, how and why. In this interactive session, Dr. Alison Alter, an independent philanthropic advisor, will help you see the value of a giving plan and how it can serve as a particularly powerful tool for advancing planned giving and building meaningful relationships with your clients and donors.

Anyone working in the field of charitable gift planning bumps into situations and circumstances that will test his or her mettle. We live in a time of high stakes and heightened scrutiny, where an ethical grounding is necessary for the staff and leaders that serve our charitable organizations as well as for-profit advisers that guide clients in giving. In this presentation, we’ll consider the ethical code as adopted more than 25 years ago by the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning (then the National Committee on Planned Giving) and the American Council on Gift Annuities. This is also an opportunity to look at 17 situational examples that relate to ethics, relationships, and technical matters as well as the results of a survey of seminar participants.

Tom Cullinan
Thompson & Associates
Editor, Planned Giving Today

President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of eliminating the federal estate tax for all taxpayers. Under current law, less than ½ of 1% of decedents have estates subject to the federal estate tax. How could the total elimination of the federal estate tax impact overall charitable gift planning by the wealthiest US taxpayers and their families?

Speaker:
Laura Hansen Dean,
AVP Gift Planning and Principal Gifts
UT Galveston

Get on the same page with your donor’s financial advisors and get better results. Cass Grange has played both roles. She will share her insights into how financial advisors think and how they are compensated. She will also speak about the motivations and objections of the attorneys and the CPAs. With experience in college fundraising and 21 years as a financial advisor, Cass can give tips and insight into working with all the advisors on your donor’s team.

Speaker:
Cass Grange, Sr. Advisor Associate, Lucien, Stirling & Gray

*** This is the rescheduled meeting from August. The event will now take place on October 30th.
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The presentation is based on several actual case studies that involved successful planned gift arrangements for various small business owners. The presentation is accompanied by a white paper/outline with citations.

Joe Hancock, JD, MBA
VP and General Counsel
HighGround Advisors

As more people live into their 80’s and 90’s, this presentation shares creative ways that common Estate gifts can be accelerated. Some examples include virtual endowments, blended gifts, and term of years CRTs.

Joe Chickey
Managing Consultant
Sharpe Group

Americans hold more than $23 trillion in their retirement plans, of which $6.5 trillion were in IRAs and another $4.2 trillion in 401(k)s. That's "trillion" with a "t." Not only is the value of the assets Americans hold in retirement plans almost unimaginably huge, but these assets can be among the most tax-efficient and therefore attractive sources of charitable gifts. This presentation will discuss strategies for attracting lifetime gifts of charitable IRA rollovers plus opportunities for end of life distributions to charity.

Speaker:
Jeff Lydenberg
PG Calc
Vice President, Consulting
Invested in your mission

December 11, 2017 at 1:30pm
This event will be held in the same location as the regular monthly luncheon

Bequests are the single biggest source of realized planned gift dollars. For the most part, you don’t know who is going to do a bequest, when they are coming in, or how much they’ll be worth. Oh, and the donor can change their mind at any time! This presentation will summarize the latest research on bequest donor demographics and marketing. You’ll learn how to raise the topic of bequest giving as well as make the bequest decision urgent and easy. There will be time for questions during this interactive presentation.

Speaker:
Jeff Lydenberg
PG Calc
Vice President, Consulting
Invested in your mission