What's More Fun Than Hearing a Speech on Death and Taxes?

How would you help a client who wants to donate farmland, mineral rights or a vacation home to charity? Non-cash assets such as real estate, closely held stock, and collectibles are estimated to be a $40-$60 trillion market; yet non-cash assets represent less than 2% of all charitable gifts.

Having a thorough understanding of charitable planning techniques is critical when assisting affluent donors/clients with charitable giving and tax planning. Bryan Clontz will cover how to maximize your clients’ deductions through untapped assets such as real estate, privately held C corporations, S corporations, LLCs, limited partnerships and other unique assets. This highly interactive session will employ case studies to illuminate key points.

These top 10 trends have completely changed the charitable planning landscape. What are the hot vehicles and assets right now? How will demographics change charitable planning? What kind of grade should advisors get in working with clients on charitable plans? How are charities and advisors dealing with ubiquitous charitable planning information? These are just a sampling of the provocative topics that will be covered.

After a long career in any field, strange things tend to happen creating teachable moments resulting, hopefully, in lessons learned.  This comedic jaunt through the always funny topics of death and taxes is designed to help us laugh at our strange profession, generally, and at my wince-inducing personal stories more specifically. If you learn something profound and life-changing in the eight vignettes, however, it will be completely by mistake. My only goal is to break into the elite club of the top 10 planned giving comedians.

As clients and donors seek tax-effective ways to manage and distribute their wealth, it’s increasingly important to offer charitable and estate planning recommendations that match their individual needs. In this highly interactive session, Bryan will present distinct community foundation case studies that include complex charitable and estate planning dilemmas and solutions. He’ll present a cross-disciplinary approach touching on legal, tax, investment, insurance and financial planning techniques unique to each charitable case. Attendees will be able to offer charitable solutions that they can readily employ with your clients.

After working with or for over 250 community foundations the last 20 years, Bryan has developed a not-so-short list of things that drive him nuts. This fun, but intentionally provocative, talk will skewer sacred cows by answering questions like: Who cares if you are the best kept secret in town? If you have Board deadwood, don’t you think it is your fault? Why do you keep trying to gather acorns when mature oaks already exist? And why do you keep trying to raise discretionary money in all the wrong places? And then there are 23 more fun-filled questions! If you dare to come to this session, bring some thick skin, a sense of humor, some tissues for tears and a notepad.

Did you know that privately held real estate wealth is more than double that of the entire stock market? And that real estate investors are among the most generous donors in the country? So why do they primarily make all their donations in cash? This makes no sense.This session will cover all the real estate donation options, challenges and solutions. Attendees will learn how environmental challenges don’t really exist.

1. Why gift acceptance committees can be the biggest obstacle.
2. The various ways charities can receive real estate with little or no risk.
3. Practical due diligence and management checklists. And much, much more!

Did you know that there are more S-corporations than C-corporations and LLCs combined? Many of these donors have very low adjusted tax basis in the stock and the inside assets and would like to be charitable. This session will cover all the S-corp stock and asset donation options, challenges and solutions. Attendees will learn:How Unrelated Business Taxable Income (UBTI) impacts these donations.

• How to mitigate the recognized UBTI by 50 percent.
• How to use S-corp stock to fund life-income gifts.
• How to use S-corp assets to make donations even with multiple shareholders. And much, much more!

In this highly interactive session, Bryan will present the history, growth and current status of donor advised funds – the fastest growing charitable vehicle over the last 20 years. Four distinct case studies will be offered covering complex charitable planning dilemmas where donor advised funds are the ideal solution. He’ll present a cross-disciplinary approach touching on legal, tax, investment and financial planning techniques unique to each charitable case.

Have you ever wondered why people say – “If you have seen one community foundation, you have seen one community foundation!” And when talking with your regional or national colleagues, you think they are speaking a completely different language. It is because the intentional or unintentional operating model for a specific community foundation can change everything – the kinds of donors, funds, grants, policies, fees and staff. This interactive session will cover the four most common operating models and the positive and negative implications for each one. Some have called this session – “the community foundation decoder ring.” But no attendee has ever left without viewing community foundations in a completely different way!

In this session, attendees will learn how to create or enhance a robust planned giving program with no money and in just 2-3 hours per month. Bryan will explain planned giving in simple terms, describes what really motivates donors to give, how to prospect and have the conversation while literally providing a step-by-step action plan for when you get back to the office. Over the last 20 years, more than 3,000 attendees have enjoyed and benefited from this talk and nearly everyone says: “I never thought it could be this easy and for absolutely no money!”

This highly interactive session will not focus on the reason to have an endowment, but instead on the design and implementation of a plan to grow your endowment. We will discuss the best practices of board engagement, prospecting, marketing, cultivating donors, having the conversation, gift documentation and recognition. The session will be very practical and will offer specific how-to suggestions that attendees can follow — almost like an endowment building recipe!

1. As professional advisors are more involved with high net worth comprehensive planning, many are directly or indirectly involved with charitable planning. After more than 25 years of working with advisors in this space, seven key common planning mistakes have emerged. Attendees for this interactive session will learn about the following charitable planning weaknesses:Many advisors aren’t raising the charitable question in the right way at the right time.
2. Many advisors presume all clients want to accumulate wealth for generations.
3. Many advisors don’t run the numbers.
4. Many advisors frequently let the tax tail wag the dog.
5. Many advisors are not engaging with the charitable beneficiaries as part of the planning process.
6. Many advisors make things too complicated.
7. Many advisors aren’t looking far enough across the balance sheet for assets other than cash.

This session will include research, tools and case studies for each of the respective gaps, and as a result, attendees will be more confident when developing and executing charitable plans.

Not much seems to confuse charities more than gift annuity reinsurance. Generally, insurance companies want to reinsure everything to eliminate risk and investment managers want to use asset allocation to eliminate risk. Like most things in life, there is usually a balance that is optimal. So this session will explain the basics of how reinsurance works, what it means to the charity and the donor, and how it can be effectively used to mitigate risk and reduce reserve requirements. We will also spend some time covering where it doesn’t fit well within pools.

When the stock market is horrible, donors love gift annuities. And when the stock market is horrible, charities hate gift annuities. This session will discuss all the best and worst practices as it relates to maintaining a healthy CGA pool now and going forward.

Life insurance is the most mercurial of gift planning vehicles. To some, it is an elegant and simple way to capture a fixed amount that exactly matches the donor’s intent. To others, it is a complex way to book gifts now that result in no eventual gift, potential litigation and/or never-ending management problems. And then in the middle, the stars sometimes align to allow a life insurance strategy to work wonderfully in about five percent of the situations with the understanding that it normally doesn’t work the other 95 percent of the time. This paper is not intended to take one position or the other. Rather, it is a survey presentation to discuss and explain each of these three distinct categories – “Tried and True”, “Black and Blue” and “It’s Up to You.” These sections are followed with a “Things You Must Do” section, where critically important pre- and post-gift acceptance issues will be covered. Finally, two case studies will be offered including questions and alternative solutions as well as additional readings.

This session covers the basics and beyond of crypto currency donations for the donor, the charity and professional advisors.

Learn more about one of the newest opportunities in planned giving:  qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) for life income gifts (CRTs and CGAs).  I will cover the new rules, open questions, practical considerations, and case study opportunities. Attendees will be prepared to:

• Advocate to internal management why the time is NOW to market these new opportunities;
• Discuss tax implications to internal and external constituencies;
• Discuss practical considerations of these donations;
• Review the target donor market;
• Discuss a number of open questions;
• CAPTURE THESE GIFTS!!!

This new law has been pushed over a decade by both the National Association of Gift Planners (CGP) and the American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA).  Editorial note:  When you wonder what value you get by joining these national organizations, this is major benefit #24… join both groups for their research, advocacy, conferences, networking and POLITICAL ACTION!!!  Laws defining DAFs, outright QCDs and NOW QCDs for life-income donations don’t just appear out of thin air.  They are a years-long result of tireless focused national efforts, lobbying (which costs money) and major time commitments by volunteers/staff.  I would pay dues for 30 years to both organizations (which I have by the way) for this one result alone so join or renew your memberships today!