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Gift Planning Knowledge
These pages contain the finer points of the technical stuff you need to know (or be learning). Look for new content every week, designed to stimulate new thinking and exploration.
The basic federal estate-tax exclusion amount for estate of people who die in 2015 is $5,430,000, up from $5,340,000 in 2014. More>
In-kind gifts--that is, gifts of tangible personal property (TPP) other than cash or securities--should always be welcome and encouraged. More>
How do people with money think about money? To be truly successful, you need to become conversant about money, and this section will help you do so. More>
A donor wants to make a $20,000 outright gift to your organization. What's the difference to his bottom line if he: 1) writes a check for $20,000, or 2) gifts the stock, or 3) sells the stock and gifts the proceeds? More>
Trusts are a key aspect of non-charitable estate planning. Yet they are important for gift officers to have a handle on, both because it works to your advantage to have a complex understanding of the potential goals and avenues available to your benefactors, and More>
Having a competent trustee is as important to the success of a trust as its being well-drafted. Naming a favored family member as trustee may be neither the smartest nor the kindest thing the grantor can do. More>
A Donor Advised Fund (DAF) is one of the fastest-growing options in philanthropy, and there are good reasons why. In fact, DAFs have surged ahead of private Family Foundations in terms of popularity. More>
Here are some questions that you can ask to better understand your donors' philanthropic and practical interests. More>
Living Trust (Inter Vivos) – A trust in which the person who establishes it benefits from it during his/her lifetime and, in common usage, is revocable by the donor.
There are no tax advantages to establishing a living trust--nor is there anything automatically charitable involved in such a trust. More>
The rule of 72 is a simple calculation of estimating the number of years it will take for a given amount of money to double in value, at a specified rate of interest. More>