C (2:53)

You know, like, fundraising by guilt.

B (2:55)

Guilt.

A (2:56)

They look at fundraising as, like, a necessary evil. They don't view it as part of ministry.

C (3:00)

Right.

A (3:00)

You know, so it's like, well, I'm an executive director of Blank School, and, you know, I'm. I'm okay doing ministry, but then I don't really want to fundraise because it's.

C (3:10)

Something you're doing to someone, and that's something you do.

A (3:12)

It makes me feel icky, you know, and I feel like I'm twisting people's arms, and I feel like, you know, I don't want to ask for people's retirement funds and their property when they die. Like, that sounds so awkward, you know, like they just. They just have this strange feeling about fundraising, and Jim and I are oftentimes trying to flip that around. We're going to be doing an episode in the future called the Journey of the Faithful Steward. And just how, you know, how it's, you know, real development is about taking the donor on this journey from transactional giving to transformational giving, and what that actually looks like. And when we're talking about the area of plan giving, you said that 90 to 99% of all people's wealth are in their assets, but yet most of us focus on the cash in hand, which is that 1%. So, you know, just hearing you talk last episode about all the different options, and hopefully on this episode we can unpack five of those options. But it really got me thinking, like, wow, there's a. There's a lot more wealth out there that could be used for Christian school schools and pregnancy centers, and people don't even know that these options exist.

B (4:22)

That's right.

A (4:22)

It's like the, the hidden gem of the donor community.

C (4:25)

Right, Right.

B (4:25)

It's exactly. And for the, for the. I, I, I can totally identify having been in fundraising, I raised my own support as a supported missionary staff with crew, as Jim does. I totally understand the psychology of that scarcity mentality, how the enemy wants to get in there and convince you that you're begging for money and there's not any money anyway. And it's noble to be poor and all this stuff, but that's why I'm so excited about the field that I'm in in Planned giving. Because every day I see that the pie is massive. The pie is massive. There is more than enough money in God's kingdom. In fact, I believe that Christians have so much wealth, the real problem is they don't feel they know how to give it away responsibly. There's so much of it. So. So there's not a scarcity. There's not a scarcity of need. There's not a scarcity of wealth. So I'm excited to be with the masterminds today and unpacking this a little more. But, yeah, it's. It's out there. And, you know, I think. I think it's also important to remember the United States of America has some of the most wonderful incentives that have ever been invented to encourage people to give away their wealth to our organizations.

C (5:40)

Right.

B (5:41)

We lead the world. We have laid the tracks down. The rest of the world is following in our footsteps, and it's never been better. In fact, the. The tax law that was just passed doubles down on America being the number one country for charity. Wow.

C (5:56)

Wow.

A (5:57)

Well, today's episode is called Top 5 Plan Giving Tools that every Nonprofit leader should Know. So I'm excited to get into this. Jim, why don't we just get right into what the top five tools are? Yeah, I've got the first one here as number one. Ask questions.

B (6:15)

Yes. Ask questions. Yes.

A (6:16)

So how is that a tool?

B (6:17)

Yes.

A (6:18)

For plan giving?

B (6:19)

Well, the reason I wanted to start with this one is because this topic could easily start to feel technical, transactional, and not really have any relationship in it. And I know you guys are big on, as you should be, the transformational aspect of giving, and it applies to planned giving, I would say even more so the most here. And so when we talk about questions, I collect questions. I have a list of 200 questions that I've collected that are designed to help a donor connect their heart with God's purpose for their life to the mission of my organization. If there's a role for that in their. In their story of their life.

C (7:03)

Wow.

B (7:04)

And that is really the foundation in our work for talking about everything else in the. In the asset giving, plan giving space. When people start considering giving gifts of wealth away, like not just writing a check, but giving a piece of their business, a piece of real estate away their heart. You better believe it. Their heart is in there. That means the enemy's in there, too. And so we better be reminding them of what God has done in their life and the story God's telling through them.

C (7:34)

Wow. Eric, Give me top maybe three questions that you probably like the most that can. For that maybe our listeners can use.

B (7:44)

Yeah. One of my favorites is can you tell me the top one to three events in your life that have made you the person you are today?

C (7:51)

Wow.

B (7:52)

And so that kind of question really will unveil what were the transformational moments in this person's life and begin to put that story arc together for you. Another question I like to ask is more forward looking. It would be something like, what kind of a world do you want to leave to your children and your grandchildren?

C (8:15)

Wow.

B (8:15)

So then you're eliciting what are the Christian values that are most important to them?

C (8:19)

Right.

B (8:23)

What is the ministry that they'd like to see proliferate? Right.

C (8:28)

I love that. Okay, great.

B (8:30)

Yeah. So, so I would encourage our, our viewers to, to do that same thing. You know, I subscribe to a question blog where a guy's like, you know, did you know Jesus asked 312 questions in the New Testament? He was constantly asking questions.

C (8:47)

Yes.

A (8:48)

Right.

B (8:48)

And, and so, yeah, become a student of really good questions. Yeah.

C (8:53)

We have a colleague that has written books on how, how to ask the right questions in there.

A (8:58)

Bob td It's a good point because so much of nonprofit work, you know, is we want to get in front of donors, make phone calls and let them know of what our needs are.

C (9:07)

Right.

A (9:08)

We spend so much time like, I need this, I need that. And it's a lot of it is just because we're still trying to, we're still in that survival mechanism.

C (9:16)

Right.

A (9:16)

Of staying afloat.

C (9:18)

But it's almost like it's all about us and not all about them. It's supposed to really be about them.

B (9:24)

Yeah, yeah.

C (9:25)

So, yeah.

A (9:26)

So top five tools we talked about asking questions as a tool. Number two, donor advised funds. Now we mentioned donor advised funds in the previous episode. We teased donor advice, donor advised funds. But let's just go right into it. Like, what is a donor advised fund? And how can someone use a donor advised fund to get tax benefits and to, to help them benefit the organization?

B (9:51)

Sure, sure. Yeah. Donor advised funds have been around for decades, but it's been in the last 15 to 20 years that they have become one of the fastest growing charitable giving tools in the United States.

A (10:02)

Why in the last 15 to 20 years, what changed?

B (10:05)

Well, it used to be a tool that was essentially only accessible to the very wealthiest Americans because of the cost of having this tool, the cost of maintenance that, you know, restrictions around it. But in recent decades, it has been Democratized and the cost of operating it have gotten so low that there you can, you can actually have start one with nothing in it. Yeah, yeah. Just as a beginning giver, a young Christian, you can have one of these. But essentially what it is, it's a segregated gift giving account at a charitable organization. And all kinds of assets can be given into this segregated account. It could be cash, it could be real estate, it could be appreciated stock, it could even be business interest. So they go into this segregated account where there is. It's tax favored. Inside that account, the donor gets a tax deduction when he makes the contribution. Things inside of it, the assets can grow in value tax free. And then the reason it's called donor advised fund is that the founding donor of that account has advisory privileges to say, I want to send. I want to recommend we send a grant to this ministry, to my church, to this organization, the Pregnancy Center. Any 501C3 is eligible to receive a grant from it. So people love these things. Donors love these because it helps them track their giving. And it's so versatile with the types of assets that can go in the tax free growth. You got one place to go to get receipts at the end of the year, not half a dozen or more organizations.

A (11:51)

Well, and you get the tax benefit right away, right?

B (11:54)

Yes, you do.

A (11:54)

If I've got, you know, maybe I didn't plan on making an extra hundred thousand at my business, but all of a sudden we had a good year and it's December 25th, you know, and you're like, I know I want to give away, you know, $100,000, but I don't know, I don't have time to write checks to my favorite org. So they just don't need.

C (12:13)

You don't want or don't need to give a gift to an organization until six months from now, but you sure could use that tax advantage now. That's where it really helps.

B (12:22)

Absolutely.

A (12:23)

So it really benefits the donor in the sense of being able to get that tax benefit right away.

B (12:28)

Yes.

A (12:29)

But then, you know, it gives. It's beneficial to the organization and just knowing that these things exist, you know.

B (12:36)

Yeah. Well, in, in gifts out of donor advised funds to organizations are typically much larger than the cash gifts from check checks, checking account or credit card.

A (12:47)

Yep. So how would you go about like knowing if a partner or donor has a daft. Because this isn't something that the nonprofit sets up Right. For them. This is a third party thing that's set up from the donor.

B (13:02)

Right.

A (13:03)

So how would you even Know that someone has this even so.

B (13:06)

So when your donor makes a grant through a donor advised fund, the check comes from the sponsoring charity for that donor advised fund. So at CREW foundation, we have a donor advised fund. So when our donors are making grant recommendations, the check comes from CRU foundation, but it's made out to Springfield Baptist Church or to CREW or to navigators. And so those organizations are receiving those checks and they can tell it's coming from a donor advised fund. And most times, unless the donor chooses to make it anonymous and most don't, it will have the donor, the underlying donor's name associated.

C (13:44)

Also, Eric, share a story that you came back from a conference, a crew conference, shared a story of a woman who really got this and she wanted to create a legacy essentially for her grandkids by setting up deaths for them.

B (14:04)

Yes.

C (14:05)

Can you kind of unpack that story? I think you're one of my most encouraging ones.

B (14:08)

Yeah. I think you're referring to dear Mrs. Walker, who had several children, I don't know, about a dozen grandchildren, and she's a very generous giver and she had a donor advised fund. And then she realized that the donor advised fund could serve as a teaching tool to teach generosity, to teach giving, and to actually introduce her children and her grandchildren to her favorite organizations and perhaps pass on to them why they should support these organizations. So she opened up a donor advise fund for each one of her children and grandchildren and then seeded it with, with money from her, you know, from her wealth.

A (14:50)

Right.

B (14:50)

And then they would have family meetings about, well, how do we give this away responsibly? What are the organizations that you're considering? Why do you like them? Why are you ruling out it? So it just opened up a conversation and became a teaching tool.

C (15:05)

She modeled for them what giving was like.

B (15:07)

That's right.

C (15:08)

Yep.

B (15:08)

Because she was, she was transparent about her own fun. Yeah.

C (15:12)

Because I mean, you know, know, as a parent, I think we've all, all three of us are parents and we, we went through that. How do we teach our kids the importance of tithing? To me, this is just what a, what a great gift and what a great way to do that.

B (15:23)

Yes.

C (15:24)

I love it.

A (15:25)

Well, it's really encouraging because I think a lot of nonprofit leaders don't even know that a daft is out there. Like if I, if we're on a phone with just a regular, you know, startup nonprofit, they're, they're just thinking cash donations, they're thinking monthly donations. They're not thinking DAFs.

B (15:41)

Right.

A (15:42)

But if you Just know that something like this is out there. It's a larger money pool that almost is the same as cash in a sense, because all they have to do is recommend a certain amount be made out. So I love that. Well, let's talk about the third option here, the third tool we wrote down. Brokerage accounts.

B (16:02)

Yes.

A (16:02)

Now, what does a brokerage account enable you to do as a tool?

B (16:05)

Yes. Well, one of the most, most common appreciated assets that's easy to give is appreciated stock, appreciated mutual funds. Well, how do you, as a charity, take possession of a gift of stock? The major tool that you need is a brokerage account set up in the name of your organization. So this is going to, you know, I can name a few. Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard. I mean, there's literally dozens and dozens to choose from. Your local bank may be able to do this, but once you have that account open, your donors can give appreciated stock absolutely tax free. They get a double tax savings. This is why it's so powerful. See, when a donor strokes a check, what do they get? They get an income tax deduction for that cash donation. When they give appreciated stock, they get the same income tax donation, but they also save on the capital gains taxes that they would have paid if they had sold that stock. So it's a double tax savings for the donor, enabling them to give more, to be more generous. Brokerage account is what you need.

C (17:12)

That's great. Wow. That is great.

A (17:14)

All right, well, did you have anything you wanted to add?

C (17:16)

No, I, I just, I think it's so important that every non profit organization, if you haven't set up a brokerage account.

B (17:22)

Yeah.

C (17:22)

You need to for sure. And you know, if you, if you have your own independent broker that you feel comfortable with, just walk in and just tell them, you know, I'd like my nonprofit to have a brokerage account. Yeah, I think it's important. Yeah.

A (17:34)

All right. Tool number four. QCDs.

B (17:37)

Yes, QCDs. Okay. Qualified charitable distributions. These are also sometimes called a charitable IRA rollover. But the idea is retirement funds in an IRA account, a taxable IRA account are given directly from that account to the charity and bypass the IRA owner. These are for people who are 70 and a half years or older. That's when you're eligible to make this kind of gift out of this account. Why is it beneficial? Well, once you reach a certain age, early 70s, you are required by federal law to take distributions from your IRA whether you want, want to or not, whether you need it or not. And that's the government's way of collecting the tax, taxes on that income. And with the qcd, you meet that requirement by making the gift to charity. And you don't owe any tax. It doesn't increase your, your taxable income.

A (18:34)

Okay.

B (18:35)

There's also benefits to that to our older, older donors because they're, they're the cost of insurance, government insurance is tied to the level of their income. So if they can keep their income down, it may also save them on some of those other expenses that are tied to the level of income. So number of benefits. It's easy to do at our organization. We have on our website a list of the top 10 most popular IRA custodians so that people can quickly find what's the 800 number I need to call? Where's the website I need to go to to initiate this gift?

C (19:11)

Great. Is that on the Crew Foundation?

B (19:14)

It is.

C (19:14)

So a non profit could go on to the Crew foundation website. You can show up and make a copy of that.

B (19:20)

Yeah, that's great.

C (19:20)

I'd recommend that as well, too.

B (19:22)

Yeah.

C (19:23)

Yeah.

A (19:23)

All right. And then the fifth tool that we wanted to talk about today is bequests.

B (19:27)

Bequests? Yes, a fancy word for a gift through your estate, usually through your will or some people have trusted. But it's essentially a gift that is left to an organization after a donor has passed away. And bequests are some of the easiest gifts to put in place. It doesn't cost the donor anything up front. They're not making the gift today. They're not using an asset that they need now. They are earmarking an asset that they have for future use for your charity. And we are in the middle midst of the great wealth transfer. Meaning economists have looked and said over the next decade or so, something like $80 trillion in wealth is going to pass from one generation to the next. That means the will trust process is going to be used to transfer that wealth, that kind of money moving around. You want to position your charitable organization to receive the charitable bequests that your donors are willing to make if they know, number one, you would like that kind of a gift and how to do it.

C (20:38)

Wow. Wow.

A (20:38)

So it really is just asking, you know, really like that's why you said at the beginning, questions are the number one tool. Right. Meeting face to face, having conversations. Now I'm listening to all this stuff as a nonprofit director and I'm going, okay, I understand. All these options are out there. There's probably five more out there. It sounds really complicated. Like, how do I, how do I I don't feel qualified as a director to talk to people about these options. I know that they're out there. I know I could do some research and probably go to the donor and say, hey, you know, have you considered this? And this? Is there a third party or different type of individual who could meet with, where I could bring into the donor and have them explain to them their options? Is that, is that what you do at Crew Foundation?

B (21:29)

Yeah, well, we're, we're at Crew Foundation. We have a team of plan giving personnel who are trained to go beyond the first question. But in crew, we face the same thing. Our major gift officers, our mid level officers are saying, gosh, how do I talk to people about this? And what we help them understand is it's not hard to introduce the topic. It's not hard to come up with a one page write up on your website or a flyer to explain a QCD to explain how to give stock. To explain, you know, what's the wording. I need to leave a bequest to your organization. These are, these are very simple things. I am confident everyone in your audience, if they just took the time. So sometimes I wonder, are they sufficiently motivated to learn? And that's where we go back to, this is where the wealth is going back to the scarcity mentality. You know, if it feels a little crowded, maybe it's because everybody's asking from the same cash bucket. Right? Plenty of money there. But what if you could broaden your horizon to the other 90%? Not so crowded in that, in that other space. So couple extra steps. Learning a little bit more. But the wealth that will be unleashed is well, well worth it. You probably are wanting to call your local foundation. Could be a Christian foundation, could be a community foundation, but that's where you're going to find that more robust help. Who can answer maybe more the more technical questions. Help the donor look at the breadth and scope of their wealth, coordinate with their financial advisor or their other professional advisor. But these top five tools that we talked about today, you can get started without that. These are reachable, accessible without that.

A (23:34)

I get how I could do the brokerage account, but the QCDs, the DAF and the bequest sound complicated to me.

B (23:41)

Oh, they're, they're not, they're not.

A (23:43)

Maybe I just don't understand.

B (23:44)

Yeah. So the, the qualified charitable distribution from the IRA is initiated by the donor so that all the donor does is contact their IRA custodian and say, I want to give this amount from IRA to this charity. Here's the address. Here's the account number. That's it. So. So our job as the charity is to make it. Provide that information to them and make it as easy to get as possible.

A (24:07)

I see. Okay. And it sounds like same with dafs, like that sounds like it's fairly easy to set up a daft.

B (24:12)

Yes.

A (24:13)

So just knowing that that's out there and then giving them maybe some recommendations of how to set that up.

C (24:19)

Yes, and there's a lot. I mean, you know, everything from Fidelity to, to National Christian foundation to the CRU foundation all have dafs and you can just contact them and get them set up.

A (24:31)

I would like to talk about the CRU foundation since we do have the CEO of the CRU foundation sitting right here. But I mean, there are a lot of foundations out there. What makes the CRU foundation unique from other foundations?

B (24:44)

Yes. Well, we want to be the go to source for people who are, Whose passion is to help fulfill the Great Commission. Many expressions of that. But we want to be values aligned with the person who's. Yes. I want to see the gospel and discipleship and spiritual multiplication happen to the ends of the earth. That's what we focus on, helping those people achieve their vision and what God's called them to do with their wealth. Another distinctive is we keep costs as low as possible. For example, we do not charge an administrative fee on our donor advice fund because most people do. Most. Most programs do.

C (25:25)

About how much? Eric, give. Give them an idea.

B (25:28)

I'd say at least. I'd say at least 90%.

C (25:31)

Oh, no, I'm sorry.

B (25:32)

What.

C (25:32)

What is an average fee? A percentage fee.

B (25:35)

It could be from 60 basis points up to one and a half percent. Okay. Yeah. Administrative fee.

C (25:43)

So that free that the CRU foundation offers. That's a, that's a, that's rare and it's a nice benefit.

B (25:48)

Yes, yes, yes, it is. And assures the donor that we're on their side. We're interested in what they want to accomplish. We're not trying to get line our pockets or siphon off anything. We want it as much as possible going to the point of impact.

C (26:03)

Right. Right. Now, one thing that you did remind us earlier, Eric, and I think I'm. I don't want to be remiss to miss that, but this would not be. Ministries would not be calling the CRU foundation, say we need your help. It would have to be their partners who are calling the CRU foundation and saying, we would like to set up. It wouldn't be a ministry calling, saying, I'd like to set up a death for my partner.

B (26:28)

Right.

C (26:28)

No, it doesn't work that way.

B (26:29)

That's right. That's right. Yep.

A (26:31)

And there's no, there's no way to bridge that gap between, between the donors or the director saying, I've got 25 donors that are interested in a DAF. Could you, could we like bulk get them all going at the same time, discounted price?

C (26:46)

I don't know.

B (26:47)

Well, let me clarify something. I think your audience, it's not their role. They shouldn't be focused on helping donors set up donor advised funds. They should be focused on figuring out who in their support network has a donor advice fund. Because someone who has a donor advised fund already has the key tool they need to unlock giving from their net worth and go beyond the checkbook.

A (27:13)

Right, right.

C (27:14)

They usually already know how to give out of their daft. And so you're, you know, they've, they've got, it's just turning the key. Whereas on the flip side, if you were trying to convince your ministry and I have to go in and convince, convince someone of the benefits of a DAF and that they ought to set up a daf. And then I checked back and they hadn't set it up. I gotta bug them to set up the daf. And you know, I didn't want to do this anyway and you convinced me to do this and you know, so you don't need all that.

B (27:40)

Yeah. Your nonprofit leaders don't, don't need to be doing that part of it. But for example, you need to understand recurring giving can be done from a donor advised fund. So are you asking your donor advised fund holders to set up recurring giving? The gifts from a donor advised fund are typically much larger than those from a credit card or checking account. Did you know that DAFs have testamentary plans? For example, when the donor dies, there's a plan in place. What happens to the funds in that account? Ask your supporter. Would you consider naming us one of the organizations that has left a percentage of the funds?

A (28:14)

Wow.

C (28:14)

Wow, that's great.

A (28:15)

Well, Eric, you've given us a lot to think about in this episode. I have a feeling a lot of our listeners are going to be googling all these keywords. Brokerage, bequests, bequests. Yeah, it's, it's a lot of good information. I have a feeling that this is just the tip of the iceberg. If we could, if we could do a third episode, you could probably talk about real estate, you could probably talk about cryptocurrency. You could probably talk about all kinds.

C (28:42)

Giving away your corporation.

A (28:43)

Of course, if you're giving away businesses, I mean, there's so many things out there, and it's. So it's definitely worth doing some research and learning about this topic. And I would encourage anyone listening to this to, like Eric said, you know, contact your local foundation. Find out what tools exist that they can help donors with just to educate yourself. Right. Can a. Can a director of a nonprofit contact the CREW foundation to have them educate them? Is there. Is there some kind of education tool that they can use to learn about the options? Not necessarily to help people set them up, but just to go deeper into how this stuff works?

B (29:25)

Yeah, we have. We have some resources. We have some training videos that we've done that we could pass along.

A (29:30)

How. How would they find that kind of stuff?

B (29:32)

Yes, let's see. You could email me@eric.lesher. that's F, L, E, S, H, O.

C (29:40)

O, D. And it's Eric with a.

B (29:42)

C. Eric with a C. Eric dot flesh, hood. That's one H and two O's at cru dot org.

C (29:49)

But they can get a ton off the website, can't they?

B (29:52)

Oh, yeah. I mean, that. Our website is designed to educate those who want to be educated on these topics. So. Yeah, that's a great point, Jim. You could learn a lot just by visiting crewfoundation.org and then you just went.

C (30:04)

Through a new rebranding and. And makeover, and I mean, it really looks good now, so thanks. That's neat. Now, how about just a fun question as we start to land the plane and wrap up. Eric, what is the most exotic, most unusual gift you've either received or that was offered to Crew in your lifetime?

B (30:27)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I wouldn't. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this, but. But the foundation did receive a pair of Arabian horses as a gift, and they brought a pretty penny.

C (30:41)

Wow.

B (30:41)

As you can imagine, it's a little complex, a little unusual, but, yeah. Arabian horses.

C (30:49)

One afternoon when you asked me to come into your backyard and help you clean up some things. Now I know exactly why that was. Okay.

B (30:57)

Yes.

C (30:57)

All right. I got it. Oh, man. So. And did you just hire a. A somebody who. That's what their job was to.

B (31:05)

Had to figure out how to find a broker. Where's the market?

C (31:09)

Yep. Well, good. Good stuff.

A (31:12)

Well, good. Well, thank you guys for joining us on this episode of the fundraising Masterminds podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know in the comments section below what you got out of it. Out of the five tools that we mentioned. Let us know in the comments below which one spoke to you the most and which one you're going to try to learn more about. And as always, please subscribe to this podcast because we have a lot of great episodes coming in the future. And Jim, any final words you want to say about donor advised funds or plan giving?

C (31:40)

Well, this donor advised fund suggestion, it just, it's a game changer these days. I mean, it's just amazing. You know, for decades I was so used to encouraging or individuals to set up foundations and I think a donor advised fund has all the upsides of a foundation and very few of the downsides. And so it's one of those tools.

A (32:04)

That go board of directors.

C (32:05)

Absolutely. And no, at this point, no minimum distributions requirements. That's on the table somewhere is what Eric's told me, possibly in Congress or something. But at this point, no minimum distribution. So yeah, it's exciting.

A (32:20)

Well, thanks everyone for tuning in. We'll see you next time.

B (32:23)

Take care.