PG Calc Blog

Is This the Worst Gift Annuity Ever Written?

The caller was calm but clearly concerned. She wanted to know if a particular charitable gift annuity (CGA), written twenty-something years ago, had been calculated correctly. And she also wanted to know if there was anything that the sponsoring charity could do now “to get out of it.” She had piqued our interest. We see a lot of good charitable gift annuities that have been written over the years, but we’ve also seen some highly questionable examples. A charitable gift annuity is a split-interest gift, an arrangement between the sponsoring charity and the donor. The donor makes a significant contribution to the charity – typically at least $10,000, and frequently much more – and the charity agrees to make payments to one or two persons for the rest of their lives. The inherent presumption is that there will be some portion of the gift left when the final annuitant passes. That portion is referred to as the “residuum” or the “charitable remainder.” The donor gets a tax deduction up...

Are You Misvaluing Gifts of Appreciated Securities?

“What’s the value of my contribution?” When the question arises, my instant response is, “Why, it’s the fair market value, of course.” If pressed, I’ll cite the IRS definition of fair market value (FMV): “The price that would be agreed on between a willing buyer and a willing seller, with neither being required to act, and both having reasonable knowledge of the relevant facts.”

What’s the Difference Between the Gift Annuity Rate and the Discount Rate?

We get this question from time to time. The gift annuity payout rate is used to determine the annuity payment amounts. The annuity payout rate is typically a suggested rate by the American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA), and the annuity payout rate is based on the life expectancy of the annuitant. An older annuitant would receive a higher annuity payout rate than a younger annuitant because the older annuitant has a shorter life expectancy. This means that the charity would pay more each year to an older annuitant with the thought that it would be for a fewer number of years.

ACGA Rates Remain Well Below NY Maximum Annuity Rates Through 6/30/2025

New York has announced its maximum one-life annuity rates applicable to immediate gift annuities issued to New York donors from January 1, 2025 through June 30, 2025. All these rates remain well above the corresponding maximum annuity rates suggested by the American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA). New York does not publish its maximum annuity rates for two-life immediate gift annuities, nor for one-life or two-life deferred gift annuities. However, PG Calc is able to compute these New York maximum rates ourselves. We have spot-checked these rates over a range of typical ages and deferral periods, and in every case, the New York maximum rate is well above the corresponding ACGA rate.

Pledge to Make a QCD

When the qualified charitable distribution (QCD) from Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) was first introduced in 2006, the timing for colleges and universities that push for 50th reunion gifts could not have been better. The new outright gift was available to donors who were age 70 ½ or older, which cleanly aligned with the age of many 50th reunion alumni. In 2006, a donor who was age 70 ½ or older was also faced with making a taxable required minimum distribution (RMD) from their IRA. The QCD outright gift provided relief by allowing a tax-free withdrawal. While there was no charitable deduction, donors benefitted by avoiding ordinary income tax on the portion of their RMD fulfilled by their QCD and receiving reunion credit for their gift. Over time, the age at which a donor could make a QCD gift diverged from the age at which they must begin taking withdrawals from their IRA. In 2025, a donor can make a QCD at age 70 ½ or older, but they are not required to take an RMD until age...

The Donor Must Be the Owner

We frequently work to assist our clients in situations involving married couples. In some cases, the spouses are looking to establish a 2-life charitable gift annuity (CGA), whereby they will both be donors and they will both be beneficiaries (annuitants). There is no issue with potential gift tax consequences in cases where the couple’s marriage is recognized by federal law – such spouses may transfer unlimited amounts of wealth to each other without any possible gift tax. And if the CGA is funded with cash, there also is no issue with possible income tax, because there are no capital gains involved in the transfer of cash. If the gift annuity is funded with appreciated securities, however, there can be significant tax issues tied to the long-term capital gains inherent in the appreciated securities.

IRS Announces Tax Schedules, Exemptions, and QCD Limits for 2025

Many federal tax items are indexed annually for inflation, such as the income tax brackets for individuals and trusts, the standard deduction, the gift and estate tax exemption, and qualified charitable distribution (QCD) limits. The IRS recently announced what the new amounts will be for all 63 of these items in 2025. The new values will increase about 2.8% over the 2024 values they will replace. All of these changes are minor and should have little effect on the tax incentives that encourage donors to make charitable gifts.

Counting What Counts

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” insisted the CFO, parroting what is often accepted as revealed wisdom and usually attributed to management guru Peter Drucker (although the Drucker Institute insists he never said it). And yet, this “what gets measured gets managed” sentiment persists despite its obvious defect, namely, “But what are we going to count?” No less than theoretical physicist Albert Einstein is said to have stated, “Not all things worth counting are countable and not all things that count are worth counting.” Nevertheless, we in planned giving must hold ourselves and our programs accountable to our organizations and our donors. Doing that requires that we count … count something, but what? Before we delve into an integrated approach to counting planned gifts as a component of all fundraising, let us acknowledge that determining the value of a specific planned gift can be quite difficult. Significantly different values can be calculated for the same planned...

I Made My QCD CGA, Can I Have a QLAC Now?

Some early adopters of the qualified charitable distribution (QCD) charitable gift annuity have begun to turn their attention to another opportunity to reduce their required minimum distribution: the qualified longevity annuity contract (QLAC). If, like several clients we have heard from, your organization is receiving calls from donors asking if they “can do a QLAC” with your organization, here’s a primer on this vehicle, how it can be used to reduce required minimum distributions from an IRA, why a donor might confuse it with a deferred gift annuity, and some advice on how to redirect a donor’s interest towards a flexible gift annuity.

BDQ #9: Can I Pay My Pledge With a QCD? How About With My DAF?

Two questions commonly asked by donors, one simple answer: “Yes. Yes, you can!”Of course, there’s a bit more to it. Let’s take this opportunity to explore a little deeper. Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD)Donors can direct a QCD contribution from their IRA to charity as long as it is for a charitable purpose. This includes making a QCD to pay a pledge. There are some limitations: the donor must be at least age 70½ when the QCD is made, there’s an annual limit on QCDs of $105,000 (in 2024, the limit is adjusted for inflation each year), and the distribution must be made directly from the IRA to the charity.

ACGA Rates Remain Well Below NY Maximum Annuity Rates

New York has announced its maximum one-life annuity rates applicable to immediate gift annuities issued to New York donors from July 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024. All these rates remain well above the corresponding maximum annuity rates suggested by the American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA). New York does not publish its maximum annuity rates for two-life immediate gift annuities, nor for one-life or two-life deferred gift annuities. However, PG Calc is able to compute these New York maximum rates ourselves, and we have spot-checked these rates over a range of typical ages and deferral periods. In every case, the NY maximum rate is well above the corresponding ACGA rate.

Medaling Mortality Tables: Gold, Silver and Bronze Choices for FASB

If you’re a charity following the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recommendations for calculating the liability of your split interest agreements, you have an important choice to make at the end of each fiscal year: which mortality table to use to calculate your liabilities. While you might hope that your auditor will make a recommendation, the choice of a mortality table lands squarely in the charity’s purview. For charities looking for an opinion on which mortality table to choose, we’re happy to offer a ranking of our preferred mortality tables from bronze to gold. Why the Mortality Table Matters The liability amount is designed to be a good faith estimate of a charity’s obligation to make payments to all gift income beneficiaries for the balance of each individual gift’s term, whether that term is for measuring lives, a term of years, or a combination of the two. Underestimating life spans will deflate a charity’s liability calculation, which can lead to real world...

Why Does the IRS Always Miss My Birthday?

Have you ever had this happen? While preparing the final calculations for your donor, the numbers turn out just a little differently than those you provided in a preliminary illustration. The difference is not substantial. In fact, the deduction is a little larger, so it’s good news. Still, you wonder why. After all, numbers don’t lie. Right? The discrepancy is probably due to the difference between “actuarial age” and actual age, or it could be the historic life expectancy assumptions used for planned gift calculations. First, let’s tackle actual versus actuarial age.

BDQ #8: What Is a DAF? (Hint: ‘D’ Stands for Donor)

Donor advised funds (DAFs) have certainly had their share of headlines recently. Proposed regulations seemed designed to limit investment options and impose excise taxes. Then an extended comment period and a public hearing fueled speculation that this could spell the end of the fastest growing segment of American Philanthropy – or maybe just level the playing field for private foundations by limiting some of the advantages of DAFs. That came atop years-long – and largely baseless – fretting that DAFs are a tax shelter, somehow allowing the wealthy to warehouse vast sums of money and keep it from being used for charitable purposes, and the looming threat of legislative proposals that could radically revamp the landscape for DAFs and community foundations. With all the noise, it’s been easy to lose sight of one the most important players in the DAF story, namely, the donor. In fact, while the charitable beneficiary is the raison d'être for a DAF, the donor is the most important player...

Hey, How’s That PIF Doing Lately?

We write about pooled income funds (PIFs) from time to time. Pretty much the same old story – no one is creating new PIFs, and if you’ve got a PIF, it’s probably languishing. The income distributed each year is just a fraction of what was distributed in the heyday of PIFs – the glory days of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Since PIFs can only distribute net income, and since interest rates have been relatively low for decades, there seems to be no appeal anymore. There have been no new gifts in years, and the participants are slowly dying off. Death by a thousand cuts, as they say. But there is still something to say about pooled income funds. For organizations that have large and robust PIFs, the benefits are significant, and they are still coming in. We took a random look at some actual PIFs and found that the charitable remainder amounts distributed to their sponsoring charities are astounding. Remainders ranged anywhere from 110% to 250% of the original gift amount. How can that be? How is...

Questions to Ask Before Accepting an International Gift

I have a friend, a veterinarian, who told me that one of the first things she was taught about cats is that they are not small dogs. Even though both are companion animals, the similarities between cats and dogs are only fur deep. This anecdote came to mind last month when discussing the challenges of negotiating life income gifts from donors abroad. Because outright gifts to charity are universal, and bequests to charity nearly so, it is tempting to think that split-interest agreements, like charitable gift annuities, charitable trusts, and pooled income funds, are just as ubiquitous. Think again. Among the nearly 200 countries on the planet, only a few have charitable gift opportunities similar to American charitable gift annuities and charitable trusts. Even when split-interest gift arrangements are allowed, there can still be striking differences. For instance, Canada offers immediate charitable gift annuities but does not allow donors deferred gift annuities or flexible gift...

Charitable Lead Trusts: Not Just for the Super-Rich

Sometimes, in the world of charitable gift planning, we focus too closely on the tax consequences of potential gift plans. With charitable remainder trusts (CRTs) and charitable gift annuities (CGAs), it is not enough to know how much the income tax deductions will be – donors also want to know how much the vehicles will pay to themselves and/or other beneficiaries over time. And not just how much the payments will be, but also, how those payments likely will be treated for income tax purposes. Occasionally a donor comes along and says that the amount of the charitable deduction, or even the amount of the payments, is not important, but that type of donor tends to be the exception to the rule. Charitable lead trusts (CLTs) are at times described as “upside-down” or “reverse” CRTs. While it is true that the charitable interest leads with a CLT (a stream of payments is made over time to one or more charitable organizations), and the remainder of the corpus at the end goes to one or more...

New York Maximum Annuity Rates Have Increased Significantly

(Updated February 13, 2024) Governor Hochul signed New York Bill A4599a on October 25, 2023. The new law revises how New York computes its maximum annuity rates for gift annuities issued to New York residents and went into effect 90 days after signing, which is to say, on January 23, 2024. New York has now published the maximum rates applicable for gift annuities funded January 1, 2024 – January 22, 2024, during which the old method still applies, and for gift annuities funded January 23, 2024 – June 30, 2024, during which the new method applies. (The new law calls for updating the New York rates semiannually rather than quarterly.) As expected, switching to the new method increases New York’s maximum annuity rates significantly. The table below compares old and new New York maximum rates with American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA) suggested maximum annuity rates over a range of typical gift annuitant ages. The columns on the far right show that New York’s new single life maximum...

Gift Annuity Voluntary Termination – What to Do and How to Do It

If you have an annuitant who finds their gift annuity income “nice, but not necessary,” they may be interested in voluntarily giving up their right to future annuity payments. Voluntarily releasing, or terminating, their interest in a charitable gift annuity (CGA) allows the charity to access the residuum early. The charity can also count part of the released amount as a new outright gift. Voluntary termination is also an effective way of managing the issue of a CGA that is wasting. An annuitant who is charitably inclined may agree to terminate their annuity to spare the charity the continued expense of paying the annuity from general operating funds.

Analysis of the New 2024 ACGA Annuity Rates

On November 22, 2023, the American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA) informed its members that it would be increasing its suggested maximum annuity rates, effective January 1, 2024. The ACGA made its 2024 rates public earlier today, December 26. The 2024 rates replace the rates that became effective January 1, 2023. The ACGA’s decision to increase its suggested maximum gift annuity rates was triggered by the sharp rise in interest rates between May and November 2023. A net investment return assumption of 4.75% underlies the ACGA’s 2024 rates, an increase from 4.25%.

From the IRS: Donors Can Give More and Pay Less in 2024

The IRS has announced increases in tax exemptions, qualified charitable distribution (QCD) gift limits, and standard deductions for 2024. Gift planners will want to pay particular attention to how these changes impact their donors.

New York Max Annuity Rates Legislation Signed into Law!

It has been a long time coming, but New York legislation that should greatly reduce the likelihood that any of its maximum annuity rates will be lower than the corresponding maximum rate suggested by the American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA) has finally become law. Governor Hochul signed New York Bill A4599a on October 25. The new law will go into effect 90 days from that date, so the New York maximum rates computed using the old method will continue to apply until January 23, 2024. We know that all 1-life New York maximum rates for the current quarter (Q4 2023) are higher than their ACGA rate counterparts, and hence not a problem for charities that follow the ACGA rates, but we can’t be as sure about 2-life gift annuities or 1-life and 2-life deferred gift annuities. For these annuities, the safe thing to do while the old method is still in play is to determine the New York maximum rate and then offer that rate or the ACGA rate, whichever is lower.

BDQ #7: Why Would an Organization Want to Have a Planned Giving Program?

If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve already come up with your own reasons why your organization ought to have a planned giving program. But what do you say to your boss? Your board of directors? Your fundraising colleagues? Let’s consider the case for planned giving. A vigorous planned giving program provides many benefits – both tangible and intangible. Of course, the key advantage is financial revenue for your organization.

BDQ #6: Why Would Someone Make a Planned Gift?

Isn’t it obvious? There are as many reasons why someone would make a planned gift as there are donors. What is more – spoiler alert – if you want to know why someone makes a planned gift, just ask them!The myriad reasons a donor might make a planned gift can be arranged into categories:

BDQ #5: What Is Planned Giving?

Sometimes there are really obvious and very simple answers. Everyone knows what planned giving is, right? Not so fast. A quick web search reveals a slippery slope into a morass of ambiguity. “Planned giving involves providing a future gift to charity through your financial and estate plans,” declares one charity’s website. A financial services company broadens the definition, but only a bit: “planned giving refers to any arrangement that will result in a future contribution to charity.” Strictly speaking, a pledge for an outright gift fits both of these definitions, but such a pledge is not a planned gift.

BDQ #4: Why Is There a Charitable Deduction and How Does It Work?

The income tax charitable deduction has been around since 1917, just four years after the 16th Amendment created the modern Federal Income Tax. But why are charitable contributions deductible? And, can a donor actually save money by making a charitable contribution? First, let’s review the history of the income tax, then we’ll explore how the charitable deduction works in practice. The Federal Income Tax The Constitution limited the ability of Congress to impose taxes by requiring that “direct taxes” be levied in proportion to each State’s population. Direct taxes are those, such as the income tax, that apply directly to persons or property. However, there was no limitation on indirect taxes, those that apply to an event including duties and tariffs. As a result, during our nation’s first century, tariffs were the largest source of Federal revenue.

Surely No One Dies on Schedule: Split-Interest Gifts and Mortality Tables

Much of our work in planned giving – in particular, with split-interest gift arrangements – involves the use of mortality tables and the related estimates of life expectancy. When calculating the charitable income tax deduction for a split-interest gift, for example, we are required to use specific mortality tables dictated by the IRS. If we wish to estimate the remaining liability for a life-income gift, we must use some type of mortality data. And should we attempt to estimate the ultimate charitable remainder value for a life-income gift, the use of mortality data is critical. But what are the different mortality tables, and when do we choose to use a specific one?

BDQ #3: The Assignment Revocation Rigmarole: A Gift Annuity Pushmi-Pullyu

The BDQ (Big Dumb Question) We’ve all been there: at some point during a presentation someone says, “This may be a dumb question, but…” and the presenter (hopefully in a gracious tone of voice) says, “There’s no such thing as a dumb question,” before providing the obvious answer. But sometimes, just to yourself, you have to admit you were wondering about the same thing. That’s the idea behind this occasional series we’re calling “The Big Dumb Question” (or BDQ). Our aim is to provide easy to understand answers to basic gift planning questions – the kinds of questions you may be reluctant to ask. We’ve got a list of topics in mind (see below). The Assignment Revocation Rigmarole: A Gift Annuity Pushmi-Pullyu The provisions of the “IRA Legacy Act” provide a limited opportunity for donors to make a qualified distribution in exchange for a charitable gift annuity. This new option comes with several constraints, including a requirement that the gift annuity contract cannot be...

IRS Updates Rules for Computing Planned Gift Deductions

On June 1, 2023, the IRS made public Treasury Decision 9974 (TD 9974). TD 9974 contains final regulations relating to the use of actuarial tables in valuing annuities, interests for life or a term of years in property, and remainder or reversionary interests in property. A change of immediate importance to gift planners, TD 9974 requires use of the 2010CM mortality table when computing the deduction for a gift annuity, charitable remainder trust, or other split-interest gift made on or after June 2, 2023.

Trust Matters: Life Income Gifts and Revocable Living Trusts

In our work with planned giving professionals, we receive questions from time to time about donors using trusts in conjunction with life-income gift arrangements. The most common question is whether charitable gift annuity (CGA) payments – or beneficiary payments from charitable remainder trusts (CRTs) – can be issued to trusts rather than directly to the annuitants or trust beneficiaries. But there is a second question that comes up as well – whether a trust can be the donor or grantor of a gift annuity or CRT.

When Your Donor Should Consider a QCD for a CGA . . . and When They Shouldn’t!

Since January 1, 2023, it has been possible for a donor to make a qualified charitable distribution (QCD) from an IRA of up to $50,000 to fund a gift annuity. This new giving opportunity has sparked a lot of interest among gift planners. Some have already helped donors complete this type of gift. Many limitations apply to the QCD for CGA arrangement in addition to the $50,000 maximum: the donor can make this type of gift in one year only and must be at least 70 ½ years old, only the donor and the donor’s spouse can be annuitants, the gift is not deductible, the donor cannot defer the annuity payments, and all annuity payments are fully taxable as ordinary income. On the positive side, the distribution from the IRA is not taxable and counts toward the donor’s required minimum distribution (RMD) for the year. Which raises the question: Under what circumstances, if any, does funding a gift annuity with a QCD make financial sense?

Pitfalls to Avoid When You’re New to Your Planned Giving Office

If you’re new to your role in planned giving, either because you’re covering for someone on leave, you’ve had planned giving added to your major gift responsibilities, or you’re new to the field - welcome aboard! PG Calc is invested in your success, and we’ve gathered a list of planned giving pitfalls that could get you in hot water with donors, auditors, or the IRS that we hope to help you avoid.

BDQ #2: I Don’t Have an RMD, So Why Would I Want a QCD?

The BDQ (Big Dumb Question) We’ve all been there: at some point during a presentation someone says, “This may be a dumb question, but…” and the presenter (hopefully in a gracious tone of voice) says, “There’s no such thing as a dumb question,” before providing the obvious answer. But sometimes, just to yourself, you have to admit you were wondering about the same thing. That’s the idea behind this occasional series we’re calling “The Big Dumb Question” (or BDQ). Our aim is to provide easy to understand answers to basic gift planning questions – the kinds of questions you may be reluctant to ask. We’ve got a list of topics in mind (see below). I Don’t Have an RMD, So Why Would I Want a QCD? “I prefer the large confusion to the small certainty,” said poet John Ciardi. That’s a healthy approach when thinking about Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCD) and Required Minimum Distributions (RMD). There is a large confusing array of initials – RMDs and QCDs, QRPs and IRAs, to name a...

BDQ #1: What Is a Charitable Gift Annuity, and Why Would a Donor Want One?

The BDQ (Big Dumb Question) We’ve all been there: at some point during a presentation someone says, “This may be a dumb question, but…” and the presenter (hopefully in a gracious tone of voice) says, “There’s no such thing as a dumb question,” before providing the obvious answer. But sometimes, just to yourself, you have to admit you were wondering about the same thing. That’s the idea behind this occasional series we’re calling “The Big Dumb Question” (or BDQ). Our aim is to provide easy to understand answers to basic gift planning questions – the kinds of questions you may be reluctant to ask. We’ve got a list of topics in mind (see below). Our very first BDQ is: What Is a Charitable Gift Annuity, and Why Would a Donor Want One? At the most basic level, a charitable gift annuity is simply a promise by a charity to pay a certain amount of money to someone each year for life. A charity makes this promise, in the form of a legal contract, in exchange for a charitable...

Why Are the K-1s Late Again This Year?  Why Are They Late Every Year??

It happens every year – your gift annuity donors received their 1099-R forms at the end of January, and everyone was happy. But once the calendar turned to February, the calls started coming in from your charitable remainder trust donors; they are looking for their K-1 forms, which report the income they received from their trusts. If you have a pooled income fund, you’re getting calls from those donors too, because they are also entitled to a K-1 form. And once the calendar turns into March, the calls get uglier. Everyone expected to receive their tax forms around the end of January, because that’s when all tax forms are due, right?

A Deduction for Non-Itemizers? Not so fast.

Non-itemizers would be able to take advantage of an expanded charitable deduction under a bill introduced by Senator James Lankford (R-OK). “The Charitable Act” (S.566) would permit those who elect the Standard Deduction to claim an additional charitable deduction up to one-third of the Standard Deduction amount for two years only, 2023 and 2024. This year, one-third of the Standard Deduction for a married couple filing jointly is a little over $9,200. It is half that for a single filer. The Bill, which has ten bipartisan co-sponsors, has been referred to the Senate Finance Committee. There is no companion legislation in the House of Representatives.

Gift Annuity Contracts Filed with State Regulators and the Legacy IRA Act

As we’ve discussed in other blog posts, it is now possible to use a qualified charitable distribution (QCD) from an IRA to fund a charitable gift annuity (CGA). Among the specific requirements set forth in Section 307 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (“the Act”) is that the “income interest” of such an annuity be non-assignable. Our interpretation of the Act is that the income interest in a CGA may not be assigned to anyone, including the issuing charity. Many gift annuity agreements, including those included in PG Calc’s PGM Anywhere and Planned Giving Manager (desktop) software, provide that the annuity is non-assignable “except that it may be assigned to the charity.” That exception is specifically provided for in Reg. Sec. 1.1011-2(a)(4)(ii), which allows for ratable reporting of capital gain when a long-term capital gain asset is used to fund a CGA if the annuity is non-assignable or only assignable to the charity issuing the CGA.

New York Maximum Immediate Annuity Rates Remain Higher Than ACGA Rates for Q1 2023

Despite the increase in American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA) rates that went into effect on January 1, 2023, New York 1-life maximum rates are higher for gift annuities funded in Q1 2023 than their corresponding 1-life ACGA rates at all male and female ages. Even better, our testing of 2-life immediate payment annuity rates over a range of age combinations suggests that all NY 2-life maximum rates are greater than their ACGA rate counterparts. We also haven’t found a case where the New York maximum rate for a 1-life deferred annuity is lower than the ACGA suggested maximum deferred rate, although it can come close.

Breaking News - Legacy IRA Act Becomes Law

[Updated December 29, 2022] In the final hours of the 117th Congress, provisions of the Legacy IRA Act included in an omnibus spending bill (the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 or H.R. 2617) passed the House and Senate and were signed into law by President Biden, creating a new charitable gift planning opportunity. Beginning in 2023, donors over age 70 ½ will be able to make a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) in exchange for a charitable gift annuity (CGA) or to fund a charitable remainder annuity trust or charitable remainder unitrust. For practical purposes, it is unlikely donors will use this opportunity to fund a charitable remainder trust. However, a charitable gift annuity could be an appealing and viable option for some donors.

Analysis of the New 2023 ACGA Annuity Rates

On November 23, 2022, the American Council on Gift Annuities announced that it would be increasing its suggested maximum annuity rates, effective January 1, 2023 (the “new rates”). We now know the details of the new rates, which the ACGA made public on December 19, 2022. The new rates replace the rates that became effective July 1, 2022 (the “current rates”). The ACGA’s decision to increase its suggested maximum gift annuity rates was triggered by the sharp rise in interest rates that started in March and has continued since July.

Is the Legacy IRA Act the Next Big Thing?

The “Legacy IRA Act” would allow a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) from an IRA to fund a split interest gift (charitable gift annuity (CGA), charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT), or charitable remainder annuity trust (CRAT)). At the time of this writing, this proposed change has been included in pending legislation that is, alas, stalled as the 117th Congress heads toward adjournment in December 2022. If the Legacy IRA Act provisions are not passed this year, there are plans to reintroduce the legislation when the new Congress convenes in January 2023. What are the chances the Legacy IRA Act will become law? And, more importantly, what should you be telling prospective donors? Before we get to those key questions, let us review the proposed Legacy IRA Act and its journey through this Congress.

New IRS 2010CM Mortality Table Throws a Curveball

We have learned something unexpected about the new 2010CM mortality table. Published in proposed regulations released by the IRS in May, 2010CM can in some situations produce a higher deduction than the 2000CM mortality table we’ve been using since 2009. This is an important realization, because the proposed regulations allow donors to compute their deductions using 2010CM or 2000CM until the IRS publishes final regulations. Naturally, donors will want to use the table that gives them the greatest benefit during this transitional period.

Research on Donor Advised Funds Presented at 2022 CGP National Conference

Dr. Danielle Vance-McMullen of DePaul University and Dr. H. Daniel Heist of Brigham Young University presented their preliminary analysis of data from 13,000 donor advised funds at the 2022 National Conference of Charitable Gift Planners last month. While some of their findings confirm what we already know about DAFs, others challenge our common assumptions. The study, which examined data from 2017 to 2020, identified four key themes.

IRS Announces Indexed Tax Items for 2023

The IRS has announced the values for 2023 of various tax items that are indexed annually for inflation. In general, values have been adjusted upward about 7.0%. Of particular interest to gift planners, the unified gift and estate tax exemption amount will be $12,920,000 ($25,840,000 per couple) in 2023, an increase from $12,060,000 ($24,120,000 per couple). So, next year a couple that takes advantage of the portability of unused estate tax exemption will be able transfer nearly $26 million to heirs without triggering any federal estate tax.

New York Maximum Annuity Rates Higher than ACGA Rates in Q4 2022

As was true for the last quarter, there is good news for charities that issue annuities in New York! The maximum annuity rates allowed by New York for gift annuities issued to a New York donor in the fourth quarter of 2022 increased modestly from their third quarter levels. Consequently, as in the third quarter, New York’s maximum single-life annuity rates for Q4 2022 are higher than the corresponding ACGA rates for all male and female ages. This means charities can offer the ACGA rate to New York donors of single-life annuities funded from October 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022, regardless of the annuitant’s age and gender.

Beware CGA Rate Shoppers

The rate to be offered to your interested donor, per your organization’s policies, is 6.5%. So what do you do if your donor asks if you can go a little higher, maybe a rate of 6.8%? And then lets you know that another charity is willing to offer that? How do you suppress the urge to waive your policy in order to not “lose” the gift, particularly since these situations often arise in the context of an exceptionally large contribution amount – which is precisely when you don’t want to increase the risk to your organization? To help stamp out the urge to participate in rate shopping, it helps to understand how policy decisions affect your program, and the impact bumping up your rates can have on its success.

Predicting Planned Giving Performance

What are the rhythm and metrics of planned giving? You’re focused on your organization’s planned giving program and under pressure to justify your budget, in terms of return on the dollar. And – just a hypothetical, of course – perhaps your organization has new leadership that seems especially fond of that old bromide, “what gets measured gets managed.” The answer always seems so simple to others in the organization: just count the dollars as they are received and compare to expenditures. Of course, we know that planned giving is more subtle than that. Measuring planned giving revenue is more complicated, and we know it’s nearly impossible to correlate current fundraising activity to dollars received today. Most often, the money isn’t received until the end of one or two lifetimes. Donors don’t always inform you of their generosity in advance. Estate distributions can come as a pleasant surprise, but it’s common to discover the catalyst for the gift was an action taken by a planned...

Gift Planning and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

Bernie Sanders has been the butt of some memes, but the picture above may summarize the exhaustion around the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Senator Sanders was taking a break from the Vote-a-Rama during passage of the bill in the Senate. The measure passed the Senate and House and was signed into law by President Biden on August 16, 2022. The legislation represents a major shift in healthcare, climate, and taxation policy. What, if anything, does the bill mean for gift planners? Directly, it doesn’t mean much. Indirectly, the law may affect some donor behavior, which is something gift planners should consider.

Good News About New York Maximum Annuity Rates for Q3 2022

There is good news for charities that issue annuities in New York! The maximum annuity rates allowed by New York for gift annuities issued to a New York donor in the third quarter of 2022 increased significantly from their second quarter levels. They increased enough, in fact, that New York’s maximum single-life annuity rates for Q3 2022 are higher than the corresponding ACGA rates for all male and female ages, even though the ACGA suggested maximum rates increased as of July 1. This means charities can offer the ACGA rates to New York donors of single-life annuities funded from July 1, 2022 to September 30, 2022, regardless of the annuitant’s age and gender.

Understanding FASB Valuations and Their Role in Your Financials

The poet Oscar Wilde noted that “consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” He would appreciate the imagination required when valuing charitable contributions. Previously, we’ve discussed the range of approaches to contribution valuation: Deduction – The value of the charitable contribution income tax deduction. Counting – The value for the purposes of donor recognition and fundraising reporting. Economic – The value of the charitable work that will be accomplished by the contribution when it becomes fully available to the organization. In this post we’re focusing on the value reported on the formal financial statements of your organization, commonly referred to as the “FASB valuation.” Most of us wrestle with FASB requirements once a year when the business office calls during the annual financial audit. Nevertheless, it is helpful to understand the FASB valuation and the variables that affect it.

PG Calc Training Makes You Stronger (at Planned Giving)

PG Calc clients will be congregating in Boston and Cambridge next week to improve their skills with our Planned Giving Manager and GiftWrap software. With separate sessions on basic and advanced functions, attendees can get answers to questions, increase their comfort level in using the software, and experience firsthand the special magic that is the PG Calc Client Services team! (Some recent feedback below) We took to Twitter to help promote the PG Calc training classes, and one post (clearly composed late at night) found some unexpected fans:

IRS Announces New Mortality Table for Computing Planned Gift Deductions

On May 5, the IRS finally published proposed regulations that update the mortality assumptions used to compute the value of annuity interests, unitrust interests, income interests, and life estates. The updated mortality table, 2010CM, is based on data from the 2010 U.S. Census. The current mortality table, 2000CM, is based on data from the 2000 U.S. Census. It has been 13 years since 2000CM went into effect, despite a Section 7520 requirement that the mortality table for valuing annuity interests, etc. be updated no less than every ten years. Update: On June 1, 2023, the IRS made public final regulations governing the use of 2000CM and 2010CM. The finalized rules are discussed here.

What's the Impact of Rising Discount Rates on Charitable Deductions?

In May, the IRS discount rate (also known as the AFR, or Applicable Federal Rate) made its largest monthly increase since June 2004, rising from 2.2% to 3.0%. Your donors might be viewing this increase with dismay, as it makes new debt more expensive, from credit cards to home mortgages. But there is a reason to celebrate this increase, as it also increases the charitable deduction for the most popular life income gifts: charitable gift annuities and charitable remainder trusts.

What’s the Real Value of Planned Gifts in Your Organization’s Mission?

What is the real value of a planned gift in accomplishing the mission of your organization? With inflation at near record levels, donors wonder if their contribution will provide as much charitable good as they expect, and organizations wonder about the return on their investment in planned giving. Calculating the real value of a charitable contribution might seem straightforward. There ought to be a single accurate value for any given charitable contribution. After all, in math class you got full credit only for the right answer, and logic tells us that two contradictory propositions cannot both be true. However, in charitable gift planning there can be at least three different values for a single contribution, each one accurate for its intended purpose.

The IRS Says You Didn’t File Your PIF or CRT Form 5227…But You Did!

We are getting accustomed to waiting longer for things these days: Waiting for baggage to come at the airport. Waiting for food to be delivered. Waiting for any device that uses a microchip. Many of the delays are due to staffing shortages. The IRS is no different. If you have received a paper notification that you didn’t file your 2020 PIF or CRT Form 5227, you are not alone. That’s because the IRS automated notice system is working just fine. However, due to staffing shortages, the IRS is delayed in opening these and other hard copy returns. So while the automatic notice machine churns on, the real live humans are still sitting and opening envelopes trying to catch up.

Money Goes to Money: Investment Results for 2021

It is a bit of a paradox that while Americans were battling the second year of an historic pandemic in 2021, the stock market was booming, and the economy was roaring back to life. Certainly, demand for goods and services was exploding, as vaccines rolled out and millions returned to work. Unfortunately, however, with multiple waves and variants of COVID-19, the numbers of cases and hospitalizations shot back up to levels not even seen in 2020. Eventually, those numbers went down – only to rise again, in time, and reach even higher levels. And yet, despite a constant stream of supply chain disruptions, despite monumental labor shortages, and against a backdrop of hundreds of thousands of deaths, the U.S. economy managed to bounce back.

Donor Surveys Show You Care

Organizations send donor surveys for many different reasons. Often, they are used to fill some holes in your database, for stewardship, or for lead generation. These are all good reasons, but I’ve got an even better one: Send a donor survey to show you care about your supporters, just as much as they care about your mission.

IRS Announces Indexed Tax Items for 2022

The IRS has announced the values for 2022 of various tax items that are indexed annually for inflation. In general, values have been adjusted upward about 3.0%. Of particular interest to gift planners, the unified gift and estate tax exemption amount will be $12,060,000 ($24,120,000 per couple) in 2022, an increase from $11,700,000 ($23,400,000 per couple). For the first time since 2018, the annual gift tax exclusion will also increase, from $15,000 per person this year to $16,000 per person next year. Also of interest, the standard deduction in 2022 will increase to $25,900 for married couples filing jointly and to $12,950 for single filers, an increase of $800 and $400, respectively. Taxpayers who are 65 or older will qualify for an additional $1,400 in standard deduction on top of that (an additional $1,750 if single and not a surviving spouse). See Revenue Procedure 2021-45 (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-20-45.pdf) for complete details, including all federal income tax...

The Infrastructure Bill … Nothing to See Here for Charities

Late last Friday, with bipartisan support, the House of Representatives passed the “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act” (HR 3684). What is the impact on charitable gift planning and year end giving? Not much. While there is much good for the country expected from it, the bill includes almost no tax changes, only one of which is even tangentially related to charitable giving: a provision requiring additional reporting for cryptocurrency transactions beginning in 2024.

Tax Implications of the Infrastructure Bills: Keep Calm and Carry On

At best, the current status of tax legislation is confused. There are two major pieces of legislation making their way through the process. Although they are distinctly separate bills, they are inextricably linked to one another. Each proposes different changes to tax law, and, even worse, the word “infrastructure” has been used, loosely, to describe both of them. Making matters even more confusing, the path forward in the U.S. Senate involves two procedural rules that are anything but intuitive. Confusion is never good for donors, so let’s break it down… but if you’d rather duck the policy wonk stuff, skip to the end for some thoughts about communicating with donors this year-end.

A Gift Annuity Is Not a Mortgage

We occasionally receive calls from clients regarding questions about the best way to perform internal accounting for charitable gift annuities. As a split-interest charitable gift arrangement, the CGA represents both a gift to the charity and a financial obligation to the annuitant(s). On this much, there is general consensus, but on the manner in which the charity should compute the estimated remaining liability for each CGA over time, there are two main approaches. Given that the total funding minus the charitable deduction equals the total estimated liability at the outset of the gift arrangement, some organizations choose to record the incremental changes in liability as a sort of mortgage payment plan, or straight-line depreciation schedule. This method essentially amortizes the total estimated liability at the beginning and breaks that total down into regular and consistent annual amounts (sometimes even quarterly amounts). There is a fundamental problem with this approach; A...

Beware Dramatic Increases in Estimated Gift Annuity Liabilities

[NOTE: The following is based on a true story.] Some of the numbers just didn’t make sense. It was that most wonderful time of the year for a non-profit organization – the closing of the June 30 fiscal year! Almost like Christmas in July, everyone was busy reviewing tally sheets and running various reports in an effort to provide comprehensive information about the gifts received over the previous 12 months. With outright gifts, of course, the process was fairly straightforward – whatever was received, for the most part, was counted with a few exceptions. With life income gifts, however, the process was a little more complicated, since the organization needs to report the total funding amount, the estimated liability, and the estimate of the charitable remainder.

The Deferred Gift Annuity Surprise

I found a recipe for Cherry Surprise Cookies. The surprise is a nugget of chocolate inside the cookies. Like these delicious-sounding cookies, deferred gift annuities can come with a surprise. The surprise can be pleasant like chocolate or dreadful, as in losing lots of money.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 Doesn’t Signal Much Change for Donors

A bipartisan group of ten Senators announced agreement to the “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act” late Sunday, August 1, 2021, and the Senate has agreed to proceed to consider the proposed legislation. The bill includes new federal investments for hard infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, broadband internet, transit, and electric utilities. A Senate vote on the bill could take place "in a matter of days," according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The Senate’s summer recess is scheduled to start August 9.

Biden Administration Releases Details on Proposed Taxation of Split-Interest Trusts

On May 28, the Biden Administration released a general explanation of its revenue proposals for Fiscal Year 2022. The so-called “Green Book” provides more detail on these proposals than had been available previously. Of especial interest to gift planners, under the heading “Treat transfers of appreciated property by gift or on death as realization events,” pages 62-64 discuss the Administration’s proposed changes to the taxation of capital gain when assets are transferred during life and at death. I reviewed some of these proposed changes regarding outright gifts and bequests of appreciated assets in a previous blog post, but until now there was no detail on how transfers to split-interest gifts would be treated.

Proposed Changes to Capital Gains Tax Could Be a Big Boost to Giving

The American Families Plan proposed by the Biden Administration includes a long list of initiatives aimed at expanding government support of children and families. It would cover much of the cost of these initiatives through a series of tax changes that include a major overhaul in the tax treatment of capital gains. It is far from certain that these tax changes will become law, but it is worthwhile to examine how they might affect the behavior of your donors if they did.

Have You Participated in the ACGA’s Survey of Charitable Gift Annuities Yet?

The American Council on Gift Annuities’ (ACGA) Survey of Charitable Gift Annuities is the best source of data there is on gift annuities and gift annuity programs. Right now, the ACGA is conducting its latest nationwide survey of charitable gift annuity programs and you can help! Please consider participating in this enormously valuable survey.

It’s Tax Season, and Timing Is Everything This Year

Everyone knows by now that the IRS has extended the filing deadlines for 2020 federal income tax returns for individual taxpayers; the normal deadline of April 15 has been extended to May 17, giving all of us an extra month. But less widely known is that the federal tax filing deadline for trust tax returns has not been extended.

$1.9 Trillion American Rescue Plan Will Affect Giving Only Indirectly

Last week, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan (ARP), a $1.9 trillion package of initiatives aimed at facilitating the U.S.’s recovery from the health and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ARP provides economic assistance to individuals in a variety of ways, primarily to Americans making less than $75,000/year (or couples making less than $150,000/year). It also extends the Paycheck Protection Program for businesses, creates block grants to help schools reopen and expand childcare, provides aid to state and local government, and much more.

Reporting the Unrecovered Investment in Contract – an Act of Stewardship

A donor’s investment in contract in a gift annuity equals the present value of the annuity payments received by the donor over his or her lifetime. A donor’s unrecovered investment in contract equals the total amount of tax-free payments that he or she would have received had he or she lived to reach life expectancy, minus the total amount of tax-free payments the donor actually received while alive. Capital gain income is not considered when computing an annuitant's unrecovered investment in contract.

Alphabet Soup: Why Do a QCD When There Is No RMD?

Gift planning doesn’t have to be technical or difficult to understand. Nonetheless, there are some abbreviations that may seem arcane. Here are some abbreviations that can help you raise more money in 2020!

Less Is Often More – Tax Issues With Charitable Gift Annuities

Less is often more. With a charitable gift annuity, a donor accepting a lower charitable deduction may mean more for the donor in tax savings. That might seem counterintuitive, but a combination of an historically low discount rate and an increased standard deduction can have tax implications for a donor considering a gift annuity for your charity. For gift officers, the message is to illustrate all the tax options and let the donor and their advisor decide which alternative best suits their objectives.

GiftWrap Is GDPR Compliant

In our ongoing efforts to ensure the highest level of customer data protection in our GiftWrap application, PG Calc has completed the steps necessary to become compliant with the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area. It also addresses the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA areas. GDPR also addresses the protection of users with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data.

The SECURE Act and Gift Planning

After lingering in limbo in the U.S. Senate for months, the “Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement” Act, aka the SECURE Act, was among several bills attached recently to a “must-pass” appropriations bill that was signed into law on December 20, 2019. The SECURE Act includes many changes to the rules governing retirement plans, including several provisions of particular interest to gift planners. All the rules described below became effective on January 1, 2020.

How a Charitable Deduction Translates Into Tax Savings

Why do donors care about the charitable deduction? The charitable deduction is valuable to many donors because it enables them to save taxes. The amount of taxes the donor can save with a given charitable deduction depends on several factors. Let’s consider a simple case first.

The Most Important Marketing Trend for 2020: Your Donor

As we approach the end of the year, it’s a great time to look ahead and anticipate the next big marketing trend for 2020. Technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, so of course, you might think next year’s big marketing trend would focus on new technology. You’d be wrong. While the use of technology in data-driven marketing will certainly continue to be important in 2020, your overarching focus should be on people. Specifically, spending time improving your donors’ digital experiences.

Attracting Gifts From Donor Advised Funds - What's Your Strategy?

The popularity of donor advised funds (DAFs) has resulted in a national movement in charitable giving. In 2017 assets in these funds reached a record $110.0 billion according to a report from the National Philanthropic Trust. This explosive growth presents a tremendous opportunity for public charities to benefit from this pool of assets. However, unlike private foundations, there are no requirements for annual distributions from DAFs. Charities expecting to maximize DAF gifts cannot sit passively by waiting for DAF grants to arrive in the mail. Those charities that implement a proactive strategy to acquire DAF gifts will develop another stream of income likely to increase over time.

Ah, For Those Lazy, Hazy Days Of Summer!

We’re at that point in the year when the kids are finally out of school, the fiscal year has ended for many, and we’re all more than halfway through the calendar year. The weather is finally nice, we’re taking our summer vacations, and in general, we’re starting to enjoy a slightly less hectic pace of living. But truth be told, summers aren’t as quiet as they used to be. Families don’t just pack up and head “down the shore” or “down the Cape” for the entire months of July and August. Colleges and even many primary and secondary schools now begin the “fall” sessions in the middle of August – or even earlier. And no one ever really disconnects and gets away from it all anymore, because we have our cell phones and our tablets and all of our 21st century accoutrements with us at all times.

Quid Pro Quo Rules Expand to SALT Tax Credits and Beyond

Charitable giving incentives are receiving collateral damage from a tug of war between the federal treasury and the states over the December 2017 Tax Act’s limitation of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction to $10,000.

Exchanging One Life Income Gift for Another

It is not unusual that a charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT) or pooled income fund (PIF) gift made by a donor years ago no longer meets the donor’s or charity’s financial objectives. A trust donor may fear that a stock market correction will deflate trust assets and her income. Or a trust with a high payout rate may be headed toward trust assets exhausting. A charity’s pooled income fund may have only a few remaining participants and the charity desires to terminate the fund because of excessive fees.

UIC Deduction Remains Available after 2017 Tax Act

Following the December 2017 passage of the 2017 Tax Act, some in the gift planning community raised the question of whether the 2017 Tax Act’s elimination of miscellaneous itemized deductions extended to the deduction for unrecovered investment in contract (UIC) at the death of the last annuitant of a charitable gift annuity, as that deduction had appeared under the heading “Other Miscellaneous Deductions” on Form 1040 Schedule A. But the 2017 Tax Act only eliminated the miscellaneous deductions subject to the 2% floor, which the UIC deduction was not subject to. The UIC deduction remains available, as is confirmed in the tax forms, instructions, and publications the IRS has issued to reflect the 2017 Tax Act changes for 2018. This deduction equals the total of all tax-free portions of the annuity that have not yet been distributed as of the death of the last annuitant and is taken on the deceased’s final income tax return.

When a Steady Income Is Better Than a Big Inheritance

Testamentary gifts (gifts made at death) are the most common type of planned gift, estimated to be 80% or more of planned gifts received by charities. Donors typically have to confront complicated family and financial issues in the estate planning process. Ask any gift officer who has been involved in planned gift fundraising. They can tell of donors sharing compelling stories of family addictions, marriage instability, costly medical conditions, and financial mismanagement. Donors anguish over leaving a potentially large inheritance to a family member who may lack the skills to prudently manage the inheritance. To complicate matters further, the donor is conflicted about making a final gift to a favorite charity from their estate that will divert assets away from a family member in need of financial support. A testamentary life income gift that will pay steady income to their family member for life, with the remainder going to charity when the life income gift terminates, may be the...

Appraisals for Gifts of Remainder Interests to CRTs and PIFs

A much-talked-about December 2018 blog post by Jon Tidd, the tax attorney and frequent speaker to planned giving groups, asks whether gifts to charitable remainder trusts will now require a qualified appraisal, even if the gift is funded with cash or publicly traded securities.

Why Software Updates Are Worth the Trouble, or Don't Be Typhoid Mary

Many applications today are smarter than they used to be. You probably think I’m talking about the applications themselves, and while it’s true that today’s applications do a myriad of useful and clever things (PG Calc applications among them), I’m referring to the applications’ built-in intelligence around updates.

Don't Cross the Red Line

The role of the gift officer is becoming increasingly complex. New tax laws and IRS regulations are placing gift officers at risk for crossing a red line that should never be crossed – the line between gift officer and financial or tax advisor. Even though much information may have been shared with them by the donor, gift officers need to know how to provide information to a donor without making assumptions about a donor’s complete financial or tax situation – assumptions that may be wrong and that could result in a donor not realizing the tax benefits they were assured of receiving.

Top 10 Planned Giving Marketing Strategies

Last year, Russell James, well-known expert in planned giving and Professor of Personal Financial Planning at Texas Tech University, presented a webinar sponsored by PG Calc entitled “Top 10 Gift Marketing Strategies from Scientific Research.” In this webinar, Dr. James presented research focusing on 10 “rules” for effective communications with prospective donors. What follows is a summary of his fascinating research. You may purchase a recording of the webinar on the PG Calc website.

Are Your Passwords as Secure as They Should Be?

In their January 2019 issue, Wired magazine reported the aggregation and publication of over 2 billion previously hacked unique usernames and passwords. These credentials are being made available to various hacker forums, potentially exposing the private data of a significant fraction of the world’s population. Analysts have determined that most of the stolen credentials represent data that is years old, and so may have already been remediated. However, the leak is still significant for the quantity of data, if not its currency.

The Highest IRS Discount Rate Is Not Always the Best

For almost 30 years, the IRS has announced each month the interest rate for computing the deduction for gift annuities, charitable remainder trusts, and most other split interest gifts. We call this rate the IRS discount rate. The donor has the option to use the rate for the month of gift or either of the two previous months.

Misconceptions and Clarifications About the Charitable IRA Rollover

Question: When Is a Charitable IRA Rollover not a rollover? Answer: Never! Or - Always! Say what? Read on! The so-called “Charitable IRA Rollover” goes back to 2006, where it started out as a temporary provision in the Pension Protection Act of 2006. The provision expired at the end of 2007, but it was then reinstated retroactively for 2008. Over the next several years, the provision would be allowed to expire multiple times and was then reinstated, sometimes retroactively. This caused a great degree of uncertainty and rendered strategic planning around the provision quite difficult. The 2015 Tax Act (Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes or “PATH”) finally made the provision permanent.

IRS Proposes Regulations to Address Estate Tax Trap

The IRS has announced proposed regulations to address a technical, but potentially very important issue for taxpayers who make large taxable gifts during 2018-2025. The 2017 Tax Act nearly doubled the unified gift and estate tax exemption from $5,600,000 to $11,180,000. However, absent extending legislation, the doubling will expire at the end of 2025 and the exemption will go back to being computed the way it was prior to the 2017 Tax Act. Any of the increased exemption not used before it expires will be lost. This brings us to the technical part of the discussion.

60% of AGI Deduction Limit on Cash Gifts More Complicated than Many Realize

Among the many changes wrought by the tax law passed at the end of 2017, one welcomed by the charitable community was the increase in the deduction limit on gifts of cash to public charities from 50% of a donor’s adjusted gross income (AGI) to 60%. We have read this section of the new law carefully and determined that the application of the 60% limit is more complicated – and, well, limited – than many realize. We lay out below how we understand the 60% limit should be applied and how it interacts with the 30% and 50% limits.

The Universal or Above the Line Income Tax Charitable Deduction

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the Tax Act) doubled the standard deduction and capped deductions on state and local taxes at $10,000, while retaining the income tax charitable deduction. The doubling of the standard deduction and capping state and local taxes means far fewer taxpayers will itemize their deductions on Schedule A of Form 1040. Fewer itemizers will mean fewer people benefiting from the itemization of their charitable deductions. The Council on Foundations is predicting a drop of $16B - $24B in charitable giving off a base of $390B. That’s about a 5% drop. A study by the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy projects a potential decline in charitable giving of 1.7% to 4.6%.

Will Your Year-End Giving Communication Be Different This Year?

Fundraisers are entering their year-end mode, and for many organizations the majority of their donations come in the last quarter of the calendar year. What is unknown is how the new tax law will change the way people give this season.

What Is the Age Range of Your Planned Giving Audience? Two Ends of the Spectrum

Our clients come in all shapes and sizes, so one might expect their planned giving programs to differ. It’s understandable then, that the age ranges of an organization’s audience for planned giving varies by organization and industry. Generally speaking, we suggest targeting donors between the ages of 45-90. But every once in while we hear something that contests that wisdom.

Half a Loaf Is Better than None

Astute gift officers recognize opportunities for giving, and then seize the day! Such is the moment in some red-hot real estate markets where prices are exceeding the highs reached prior to the Great Recession. Owners who watched as their equity evaporated during the downturn may now be thinking this is the time to cash in on their profits. This may particularly be the case for donors who own infrequently used vacation homes and investors with rental properties who no longer wish to deal with tenant idiosyncrasies. However, sellers of these properties will not receive the generous exemption from capital gains taxes afforded to those who sell a principal residence.

It's the Capital Gains, Stupid!

We hope that you’ll pardon the title of this article, which is a modification of the infamous James Carville campaign mantra in 1992 – “it’s the economy, stupid!” As was the case with the original phrase, this expression is meant to be tongue-in-cheek and self-directed. The tax legislation passed by Congress and signed by the President last December seems to have rendered the itemizing of personal deductions much less beneficial for large numbers of Americans. There has been considerable discussion among fundraising professionals that the result will be a dramatic decrease in charitable contributions. Whether or not you agree with that assertion, this article is about something else - the realization that the possible benefits of reducing taxes on realized capital gains by contributing appreciated securities for split-interest gift arrangements remain as powerful as ever.

Please Don't Donate Cash

The new tax law has prompted many articles on a variety of topics. One topic, gifts of non-cash assets, is getting a lot of attention due to the most recent research from Professor Russell James. Professor James’ report, Cash is not King in Fundraising: Results from 1 Million Tax Returns, provides proof of what many fundraisers already know, but often have difficulty communicating or acting on.

The Return of Gifts of Real Estate

It’s simply a matter of supply and demand - when demand outstrips supply, prices rise. That is the state of today’s real estate market in many parts of the country, and therein lies the opportunity for gifts of real estate. According to statistics issued by the National Association of Realtors, in April 2018 the median already-built home price rose 5.3% over the prior year, the 74th straight month there’s been an increase in the price of already-built homes. At the same time, the number of homes for sale fell over the prior year for the 35th consecutive month. In short, supply is limited and demand is outstripping supply, causing prices to rise for already-built homes.

Social Media Then and Now

Eight years ago, I wrote a post discussing the role of social media in planned giving based on an interview with Beth Kanter, a leading expert on the use of social media by non-profits. It’s amazing how much and how little has changed in that time. While social media has taken off for outright giving, it remains primarily a vehicle for engagement and stewardship for planned giving.

Marketing Strategies for the ACGA Rate Change

The American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA) just released its new recommended gift annuity rates, effective July 1, 2018. In general, the rates will increase by .3% to .5%. For a look at the rates and PG Calc’s analysis of the change, read our recent blog post. Changes in the ACGA suggested rates, up or down, create the chance for communication with current annuity donors and those considering a gift annuity. The current rate increase certainly offers opportunities for additional annuities from existing annuitants. But more importantly, the rate increase will likely motivate others considering an annuity to make their first gift. This means increased diversification of your pool, thereby reducing your long-term risk.

When Does Something Become a Trend?

It's always interesting to discuss the latest marketing trends, especially since trends don’t occur that often in the planned giving world. However, in the last 18 months, we have conducted several marketing evaluations and audits that have revealed something - a shift in thinking.

Sustainability

When we think about sustainability, the first thing that generally comes to mind is saving our world’s precious resources. Sustainability is in the news daily. Just recently, it was reported that Cape Town, South Africa will run out of water as soon as April 2018! Sustainability is not just about being careful how we use our resources so as not to deplete or damage them. It’s also about “relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods,” according to Webster Dictionary. Sustainable methods = Something you can maintain So how do you sustain your planned giving marketing program?

What Is The New Lifetime Gift and Estate Tax Exemption Amount, Anyway?

You undoubtedly are aware that among the changes found in the new tax law is a doubling of the lifetime exemption for federal gift, estate, and generation skipping transfer taxes. This doubling is effective January 1, 2018 and is set to expire December 31, 2025.

Gift Planning and Marketing Metrics

The National Association of Charitable Gift Planners (CGP) created a task force charged with defining metrics to evaluate the work of gift planning fundraisers and to develop guidelines for criteria to measure the performance of planned giving programs. The task force has not issued its final report, but we have some feedback on their likely recommendations. Best practice performance metrics will provide a basis for evaluating the success of a charity’s planned giving efforts.

NCPP 2017 Marketing Nuggets

Having just returned from the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning, I thought it would be timely to share a few marketing takeaways. While there is nothing revolutionary to report, it’s always nice to talk with colleagues about their marketing successes and challenges. Here’s what I gleaned from the sessions I attended.

Demystifying Mortality Tables Used in Gift Planning

Annuity 2000. 2012 IAR. 1983 Basic. 2000CM. Perhaps you are familiar with one or more of these terms. They are the names of mortality tables that are important to planned giving calculations of one kind or another. With so many different mortality tables in play, it’s no wonder that gift planners get confused about which table is used for what purpose and why . . . to the extent that they think about them at all. To help dispel the confusion, I briefly describe below what a mortality table is and the specific use and characteristics of the four mortality tables that gift planners need to be most aware of.

Some Observations on the GOP Tax Reform Framework

The Republican leadership on Wednesday September 27, 2017 released a framework for proposed tax reforms for consideration by Congress. While the framework proposes retaining the income tax charitable deduction, it also proposes nearly doubling the standard deduction. Reducing the number of itemizers arguably reduces charitable contributions without the incentive of itemized charitable gifts. Nonetheless, giving is motivated by more than just tax incentives. It remains to be seen how decreasing the number of itemizers might affect charitable giving.

Are Your Marketing Efforts Working?

How do you evaluate your marketing program? Well, it depends. There are many things to consider, and because there is no “right” way, it's not as straightforward as you might think. One characteristic to consider is the age of your program. Is it in its beginning stages, is it a mature program around for decades, or is it somewhere in between? The age and size of your planned giving program is a material factor when you measure and evaluate the results of your planned giving marketing.

Imitation Is the Greatest Form of Flattery

They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery. I believe it was Pablo Picasso who said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Many other writers and composers have been quoted saying something similar. Great ideas are never born, they are just reinvented. This is true of most things, and marketing, especially for planned giving, is no exception. As soon as someone discovers a “new idea,” there is no reason not to imitate it to see if it will produce the desired results.

Life Expectancy and Gift Planning: It's Not What You Think

A 70 year-old wants to fund a 5% charitable remainder unitrust with $500,000. If he receives payments for the rest of his life, he gets a charitable deduction of $261,815. On the other hand, if he chooses to receive payments for exactly his life expectancy of 14.2 years, he gets a deduction of $244,060. Strange. Why aren’t the two numbers the same?

Wait! Wait! Your Wife Is How Old?

How do you respond to a request by one of your organization’s strongest supporters for a two-life charitable gift annuity for him and his wife when you know that his wife is at least a couple decades younger than him? Let’s suppose that the donor is 71 and his wife is 47, for example. Would you be willing to entertain a discussion about a gift annuity written for the joint lives of these two individuals?

Advisor Marketing? No, Advisor Stewardship

In the planned giving community, there is considerable controversy about how much time (and money) should be spent “marketing” to financial advisors. When working with our clients, we often ask about strategies they have found to be effective when working with and marketing to advisors. Here are a few simple guidelines we have developed to help ensure that investing time with advisors produces the desired results:

PG Calc Announces Photo Contest - Where's Zombie?

PG Calc announces a new photo contest for all of our friends and customers - Where's Zombie? The object of the contest is to submit photos of PG Calc zombies in unusual and fun places. You can get your PG Calc zombies by visiting us at any of the planned giving conferences we will be attending during the year. You can see our conference schedule here. Send entries to info@pgcalc.com or tweet @PGCalc #huntingforpgcalcbrains. Entries will be judged on creativity, and the winner will receive a year of free Planned Giving Manager (PGM) service and support - a $695 value! If you're using our Marketing Services and are already getting free PGM, we'll take another $695 off your Marketing Services fee! To see the contest rules and current entries, go to the zombie page on our website. Good luck!

It's Time for Gift Planning to Jump on the Bandwagon

We talk about target marketing, about segmenting a list so that you can create messaging that is specific to each segment of your audience. Unfortunately, gift planners rarely segment their lists. This is partially because planned giving mailings tend to be small in comparison to broader appeals, such as for annual gifts. Further, segmentation is not only more time-consuming for the person involved, but also can be more costly. So, what to do?

Smart Giving and Tax Law Changes

The Trump administration has announced a tax plan for Congressional consideration. The plan features reduction of personal and corporate income tax rates including taxes on pass-through business entities such as S corporations, compression of the number of tax brackets from seven to three and an increase in the standard deduction. Personal income tax rates are reduced to 10%, 25%, and 35% brackets. This proposal eliminates the deduction for state and local income taxes but the income tax charitable deduction remains.

Deja Vu

Sometimes an idea is so good, it’s worth reminding our readers. A few weeks ago, Greg Warner of MarketSmart published a blog post related to internal telemarketing programs. For those of you who didn’t read it, the post is short and worth your time. For those of you who did read it, did you add this to your list of marketing ideas?

Is Giving Up or Down? Depends on How You Count.

On December 30 of last year, National Public Radio aired a segment on All Things Considered with the headline, “Charitable Giving Sees Big Bump In 2016.” Among the indications noted by reporter Pam Fessler that 2016 would be a good year for fundraising, $168 million was donated nationwide on Giving Tuesday, a 44% increase over the previous year.

An Underutilized Cultivation and Marketing Tool

Do you need a reason to reach out to your legacy society members? Would you like to move the cultivation process forward with your top planned giving prospects? Here’s a fairly simple way to accomplish both – focus groups. While it helps to have some knowledge or experience in running a focus group, it is not a requirement and should not prevent you from conducting one. It’s a smart way to get thoughts on your planned giving marketing, whether about a new direction or the effectiveness of your current marketing program.

Preparing and Sending 1099R Tax Forms for Donors

When it comes to administering planned gifts, many charities seek outside help. Why? Because a well administered planned giving program means happy donors. The Gift Administration team here at PG Calc provides our customers with the highest quality service and the peace of mind that comes with knowing their donors' needs will be met.

Should You Be Concerned About USPS "Marketing Mail?"

Recently the United States Post Office made a decision to change the classification that was referred to as “standard mail” to "marketing mail." This is a topic of some concern among nonprofits because anything that was referred to as direct-mail that was marked with the word "standard" will now read "marketing." The current thinking is that more recipients will throw out the mail because of the change in labeling.

Titles Speak Louder Than Copy

Every week presents another opportunity to hone my marketing skills doing something I find extremely difficult - writing. Whether for gift officers or donors, there is always an article or marketing communication beckoning to be created or revised. It's not easy for many reasons: finding the inspiration, determining the message and tone, reinventing new ways to say the same thing, but that is to be expected. Isn't that a marketer’s job?

Rising IRS Discount Rate Creates Gift Planning Opportunities

After six years of drifting around in record-low territory, the Applicable Federal Rate, otherwise known as the IRS discount rate, has leaped upward 0.6% this month to 2.4%. That’s the highest the rate has been since mid-2014. The leap was a direct consequence of the Federal Reserve raising its target for the Fed Funds rate in mid-December. What’s more, the Fed has indicated it expects to raise the Fed Funds rate in increments three more times during 2017. That would portend further increases in the IRS discount rate over the next 12 months.

Six Email Myths You Should Know

There are over 4.35 billion email accounts and it is predicted to reach 5.59 billion by 2019, a growth of more than 26%. Here are some other fun statistics on email: Over 122 billion (122,500,453,020) emails are sent every hour. The average number of emails an office worker receives each day is 121. The open rate for email in North America is 30.6%. The percentage of email that is spam is 49.7%. Email marketing is thriving throughout the non-profit and for-profit worlds. This includes the growing number of multi-generational mobile users who check email on their phones daily. Statistics like these have convinced many planned giving marketers that email is essential for donor lead generation.

The Year of Life Income Gifts

Next year is going to be the year of life income gifts, or actually, it will probably be the next four years. When I read a recent New York Times headline, Plans for Uncertain Times: What do you still control?, I thought they had received a gift annuity mailing! It’s clear that this is a message that will be relevant for a long time.

Economic Plans of the Presidential Candidates

It may seem like it will never end, but the Presidential campaign will soon be over. (Let us please not have a recount like Florida in 2000!) Polls are suggesting a presumptive winner. Nonetheless, the number of undecided voters are at record levels, which introduces unprecedented uncertainty into the election. With that caution in mind, let us compare what we know about the economic priorities of the two candidates with particular emphasis on how their plans would influence charitable giving.

Another Touch Point

This past summer, PG Calc wrote a blog post entitled “Transforming Life Income Gifts into Current Gifts.” The post was informative and thoughtful, but there was a golden nugget touched upon in the post that should be emphasized. Most of us know that our best donors are our current donors, and that is true for donors of gift annuities as well. Organizations’ gift annuity programs receive anywhere from 30% - 60% of their new gift annuity contracts from existing annuitants. Most charities market to their existing annuitants on a regular basis, with mailings or personalized calculations to illustrate the financial benefits of a gift annuity. However, sometimes stewardship can be the most effective strategy for securing an additional gift, or to increase a bequest gift to your organization.

Why Print Will Never Die

While the summer days are behind us, vacation has provided an opportunity to let go and enjoy ourselves in different ways. For many, it has meant spending time elsewhere with family and friends - the kind of experience where you want to capture the moments. And that we do.

When Only a CRAT Will Do

The charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT) is far more popular than the charitable remainder annuity trust (CRAT). Annuity trusts make up only about 15% of all charitable remainder trusts in existence. Nonetheless, there are donor situations where the CRAT can be an attractive option. Although we usually think of the gift annuity when a donor desires fixed payments, here is a list of situations where the CRAT beats the gift annuity:

Is This a Good Time for Gift Annuities?

Given unprecedented low interest rates, which shows no signs of material change, we have been asked a common question from our clients, “Should I continue to promote gift annuities?” There appears to be some skepticism and nervousness in the industry on whether it’s a good strategy to continue to market these gifts now because annuity rates are low and donors aren’t interested, and rightly so. With a few exceptions, and those are from organizations who don’t follow the ACGA rates, most charities are experiencing a decline in gifts this year and at best it’s flat compared to last year.

Extremely Low IRS Discount Rate Creates Opportunities and Challenges

The monthly IRS discount rate dipped to 1.4% for August and has stayed there for September. Although this rate has been at historically low levels since 2008, it hasn’t been this low in over three years. The extremely low IRS discount rate creates opportunities and challenges.

Transforming Life Income Gifts into Current Gifts

Life income gifts are always deferred gifts. The arrangement is made now, but the charity’s use of the funds is delayed until a future date, normally the death of the donor and any other individual beneficiary of the gift arrangement. Unfortunately, the donor of a life income gift usually does not get to see the gift in action, and the charity is unable to address pressing current needs. Converting a life income gift to a present gift can be both emotionally satisfying to the donor and immensely beneficial to the charity.

Projecting Future Income From Bequest Expectancies

The significance of bequest commitments and the dollars they will ultimately bring to charitable organizations are often ignored or underutilized in financial planning. Yet, bequests are the largest source of planned gift income for most charities with planned giving programs (and in fact are often a large source of income for charities that don’t think they have a planned giving program). A simple analysis of your bequest expectancies can translate donors’ commitments into projected future income streams. This is valuable information for your board and other leadership and should foster a greater appreciation for the role of bequest commitments and the planned giving staff who obtain and track them.

The Simplest Way to Improve Conversions

If you were a marketer selling widgets online, part of your job would be to steer potential customers to easy-to-find order buttons that lead to an order form. Each button clicked by a visitor would be a measurable conversion.

Creating a Marketing Project Brief

A reader asked the following: Can you share a one-page marketing project overview and perhaps share examples clients use to develop collateral and summarize results?

The Key Ingredient to Email Marketing Success

It’s no secret why marketers in the for-profit and non-profit worlds continue to invest in email. It can be your most cost-effective touch point with your target audience. And that audience is only growing. In 2015, there were more than 4.35 billion email accounts and nearly 2.6 billion email users worldwide. So does that mean it’s time to increase your email blasts? No, quite the opposite. It might just mean you need to send fewer.

The Revocation Clause

The life income gift arrangements that make up a significant portion of planned giving – charitable gift annuities, charitable remainder trusts, and pooled income funds – are all irrevocable. In order to qualify for a charitable deduction and special tax treatment, these vehicles cannot allow any changes, and the donors cannot “take them back” in any way. There is, however, a provision that may be included in these legal arrangements which allows the donor to revoke the income interest of another person at some point in the future.

Keeping Up With the Times

Last month's Marketing Corner discussed the importance of imagery when marketing your program. A reader responded with the following comment: "Here’s one of the all-time great pictures of a face. It’s the eyes." “Steve McCurry’s iconic photograph of a young Afghan girl in a Pakistan refugee camp appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine’s June 1985 issue and became the most famous cover image in the magazine’s history, ” according to the National Geographic website.

How Do You Measure Your Marketing Program's Success?

There's nothing like receiving a very large and unexpected bequest to grab leadership's attention. Such was the case about seven years ago, when a small regional university finally decided to formalize its planned giving program. Up to that point, the marketing of its planned giving program was inconsistent and the attention it received from development was sporadic. The realized bequest was the catalyst to pay more attention to this planned giving thing.

ACGA 2016 Recap

PG Calc team left to right: Bill Laskin, Andrew Palmer, Genevieve Richardson, Larry Kerstein, Gary Pforzheimer, Mike Valoris, Edie Matulka, Ann McPherson, Jeff Lydenberg, Samantha Benson. Last week ten intrepid members of the PG Calc team from Cambridge, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Cincinnati swooped into St. Louis to attend the 32nd ACGA Conference put on by the American Council on Gift Annuities. There were over 500 people in attendance and while I’m pretty sure we didn’t meet everyone, we did catch up with hundreds of clients and prospective clients from all over the country. In fact, I had a nice conversation with an attendee from Jerusalem and had dinner at an awesome Peruvian restaurant so I think it’s fair to say it was a truly international event.

A Little Change Can Go a Long Way

I was using Planned Giving Manager recently to check values in a table of gift annuity deductions. To my surprise, my results differed markedly from the values in the table. Although I noticed that there was a small difference between the IRS discount rate I used (2.2%) and the one used in the table (1.8%), the difference in deductions was so great that I was worried that I had stumbled upon a bug. Not so. It turned out that the small difference in IRS discount rates was the whole story.

How to Improve Your Marketing Through Photos

Once in a while an article comes along that is so relevant to our work that it’s a wonder why more organizations aren’t already doing what the article prescribes.

Qualified Appraisal for Gifts of Life Income Interest

Donors receiving income from charitable gift annuities, pooled income funds, and charitable remainder trusts may decide to make a gift of their income interest to the charity receiving the remainder of the gift. Upon the transfer of the income interest to the charity, the life income gift is then terminated and funds become immediately available to the charity. Based on certain criteria related to each situation, the donor may receive an income tax charitable deduction. However, like with other non-cash gifts, donors need to be aware of the IRS substantiation requirements for an appraisal when making a gift of a life income interest to charity. Failure by the donor to comply with these requirements can result in the donor being denied the charitable deduction.

What Are Your Keystone Habits?

Most of us have more work than we have time for. Prospecting, donor calls and donor visits, stewardship, donor reports and updating activity records, marketing, department meetings, gift/estate administration, leadership and board reporting, all compete for our attention. Success does not rely on getting it all done, however, it does relies on getting the right things done. That’s where planned giving marketing can have its challenges. Marketing programs often suffer in the execution, but it’s not so much a failure to execute – it’s a failure to execute the right things. And this applies to organizations with a dedicated planned giving staff, as well as organizations in which planned giving is part of the overall fundraising function.

Thank You, Thank You!

It was the eve of 2016 and because the office was quiet with so many clients away on holiday, it was a good time to catch up on some reading. I found a real gem in the December 22 publication of the Chronicle of Philanthropy where they compiled a toolkit of tips that had been collected throughout the year on the topic of “how to thank (and retain) a donor.” For the benefit of our readers who might have missed it, these tips are worth repeating. More importantly, you should keep them in your files and make them part of your 2016 stewardship plans.

Year-End Reminder - What a Difference a Day Makes

What prompts the flurry of calendar year-end gifts? That all important – to many of your donors – current year charitable deduction. A day late, a gift made on January 1st rather than December 31st, and the deduction is “lost” for a year. Of course, a day can make a difference throughout the year, by changing what discount rate is used for calculating the deduction or in determining the amount of a first gift annuity payment. But it is of particular significance at year-end.

IRS Announces Tax Schedules and Exemptions for 2016

Many federal tax items are indexed annually for inflation, such as the income tax brackets for individuals and trusts, the standard deduction, and the gift and estate tax exemption. The IRS recently announced what the new amounts will be for all 51 of these items in 2016. Given the very low rate of inflation over the last year, the new values will increase only about 0.4% over the 2015 values they will replace. All of these changes are minor and should have little effect on the tax incentives that encourage donors to make charitable gifts.

Year-End Giving

As a general rule of thumb, when it comes to planned giving marketing at year-end, I advise our clients to stop distributing planned giving targeted mailings by October. Most organizations are in full throttle with their end-of-year and annual fund solicitations intended for outright giving. Trying to compete against annual fund solicitations with planned giving mailings doesn’t make good business sense, and doesn’t consider how the recipient is inundated with year-end solicitations in general.

Hidden CGAs: A Cautionary Tale

There are two scenarios for how the funds from a gift annuity issued by one organization might ultimately be directed to another organization. In one situation, Charity A either doesn’t issue gift annuities at all or doesn’t issue them in a particular state, but knowingly directs a donor interested in a gift annuity to another charitable organization (Charity B) that will issue a gift annuity to the donor. In this situation, Charity A has the opportunity to proactively look into Charity B, the issuing organization, and to understand how the gift will be managed and distributed.

Marketing Day at the Planned Giving Group of New England

People often have ominous feelings about Friday the 13th, but last Friday I attended our local planned giving council meeting where November is marketing month. Nothing unlucky was happening here.

PG Calc Celebrates Halloween

PG Calc has a long tradition of celebrating Halloween. Every year there are tricks, treats, and of course, costumes!

Visiting a Donor? Don’t Forget YourTablet!

As you may be aware, PG Calc has developed a web-based app for illustrating planned gifts called PGM Anywhere. One of the driving forces behind the development of PGM Anywhere has been the desire of many of our clients to run planned gift illustrations on their tablet, such as an iPad or Samsung Galaxy.

Charitable Gift Annuity Marketing Survey Findings - Resources, Policies and Patterns

After surveying over 340 organizations on how they market gift annuities, one of the most exciting things we learned was that most organizations saw an increase in gift annuity donors in the past two years. Whether credit goes to the upturn of the economy, to donors feeling more financially secure (these two facts are related, of course), or some other factor or factors, gift annuity programs are growing again after witnessing a major slump from 2008 to 2011. In this blog post, we dive further into the results from the survey and investigate some of the factors that may have contributed to the increase in the number of new donors.

IRA Charitable Rollover for 2015 Experiences Turbulence

The word from Washington, DC is that tax reform has stalled in Congress until after the 2016 election. And what about the tax extenders, including the now-expired IRA charitable rollover? As of a couple of weeks ago, Congress appeared to be on a slow glide path to vote through a 1-year extension for 2015 in mid to late December. It is still possible that Congress might fear the ire of frustrated supporters and constituents during the 2016 election year enough to vote through a 2-year extension for 2015 and 2016. It is also possible the extension could stall out, and John Boehner leaving the pilot seat as House Speaker may factor into that.

20 Ideas for Marketing Charitable Gift Annuities

This summer we asked over 340 organizations about how they market charitable gift annuities. One of the most interesting things we learned were the specific tactics organizations were trying to get the word out.

Giving USA Report Brings Good News for Gift Planners

2014 was a record year for philanthropy in the United States, according to the Giving USA 2015 Annual Report. There was a 7.1% increase in giving dollars over 2013 (5.4% adjusted for inflation). These numbers signal the return of pre-recession giving patterns. Some experts had predicted it would take 10 years for charitable giving to rise back to pre-recession levels, so the increases are heartening.

How to Increase Your Planned Giving Leads

There are many ways to increase your planned giving leads. Most clients inquire about their marketing strategy or specific tactics, such as newsletters, emails, ads, inserts, and targeted mailings. While using these self-identifying techniques are an important part of any marketing program, they are only part of the picture.

A Case Study in Marketing Personalization

"People prefer -- and often crave -- personalized experiences." – Hubspot Blog Lately, I have been getting calls from clients complaining that their marketing isn’t working. They aren’t getting as many leads as they had expected, they can’t get appointments, or it’s costing them more to get the same results they were getting just a few years ago.

Survey Results: How Do You Market CGAs?

Don't Let Your Program Audit Become a “Ramp to Nowhere”

When construction was undertaken, the “ramps to nowhere” in the below picture had a purpose, to connect with an anticipated highway that would run nearby. With the highway having long ago been scrapped, the ramps have stood as is for 50 years, at least finding use as diving platforms and a “canvas” for artwork.

Look Beyond What You See When Auditing Your Planned Giving Program

Optical illusions are fun; they invite us to look for two things in a single image. Sometimes we see both perspectives without prompting, other times the second image becomes clear only when it is pointed out to us, and still other times... well, sometimes we just can’t get beyond our initial perspective.

Watch Your Step

What does a review of your planned giving program have in common with taking photos at the Grand Canyon or kayaking on the Niagara River?

2012 IAR: A New Kind of Mortality Table

Several states, including New York and Washington, have begun requiring the use of a new mortality table for determining the minimum reserves required for gift annuities issued on or after January 1, 2015. PG Calc recently added this new table, 2012 IAR, to Planned Giving Manager (PGM) and GiftWrap, so now is a good time to learn more about this new mortality table and how it differs from all the ones that have come before it.

Marketing Your Gift Annuity Program

Without a doubt, one of the questions our consulting clients have asked us most often the past couple of years has been, “How can I improve the results of my gift annuity program?” There has been much discussion in the planned giving community on this topic. Professor Russell James’s recent research has added greatly to the discourse by highlighting the importance of word choice and phrasing in planned giving marketing messages. It’s exciting to have his academic research available to help us shape how we spread the word about planned giving.

PG Calc's 30th Anniversary Celebration in Photos

This March marked 30 years in business for PG Calc. After a historically snowy New England winter, we waited until the snow melted to hold a proper (outdoor) celebration.

Improve Your Fundraising Results with One Word, "REFRAME"

There is one little word that can have a profound impact on your fundraising and it might not be the word you had in mind. "Reframe." The formal definition is, “a way of viewing and experiencing events, ideas, concepts and emotions to find more positive alternatives.”

The Importance of Your Brand

Joshua Bell released a new Bach recording recently, which had me a bit perplexed. There is nothing new about Bach. Why would anyone want to buy this CD, since there are so many Bach recordings already in existence? But Bell has his own “brand,” and people will buy this recording just because he has a following and his interpretation of Bach’s music is sure to be different from his peers.

The Scent of Conversion

The latest trend in planned giving communications is something called “donor-focused design,” an approach that places the donor at the center of the design process. The concept is based on the presumption that an organization’s communications will be more effective and will resonate more with donors if they reflect the needs, objectives, and in particular, language of those donors. Interestingly, this concept is completely in line with a philosophy of website design that the best practitioners have followed for some time. The most effective websites are designed using the results of research into user experience (UX), including areas such as eye scanning, and information tracking. As early as 2001, research done by Dr. Ed Chi, who at the time was Principal Scientist for Augmented Social Cognition, as well as others at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), indicated that humans track information in a fashion similar to the way that animals follow a scent. People... engage in...

Dos and Don’ts with 1099-Rs

It’s tax season, and there are some dos and don’ts you should be aware of as you prepare your donors’ 1099-Rs. DO mail a 1099-R to your gift annuitants so it is received by them on or before Monday, February 2, 2015 (January 31 is usually the deadline but we get a few more days because it’s a Saturday this year).

10 Dirty Little Secrets of Gift Administration

OK, so they’re not exactly “dirty” little secrets. But who among us hasn’t had a moment administering a particularly complex gift and thought – what have I gotten myself into? PG Calc has been providing gift administration services since 2001, and we know that the work we do behind the scenes is critical to the ongoing success of our clients’ planned giving programs. We also know that there are plenty of unexpected headaches that can accompany administering a planned gift.