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Newsletter Archives

April Newsletter

Gift Annuity Rates to rise.....The American Council on Gift Annuities board of directors held its semi-annual meeting on April 28, 2010. At the meeting the Rate Committee recommended a new schedule of gift annuity rates effective July 1, 2010, and the Board approved that schedule. Click here for a direct link to the new ACGA rates. For a modified single life and two life rate chart prepared for clients and friends click here.

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IRA conversions....Fidelity Investments reports 58,000 individuals converted their Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA during the first quarter of this year, a fourfold increase over last year.

BofA MerrillLynch converted 15,000 accounts up from 3,600 conversions in the same period last year.

Remember every IRA account must have a beneficiary and a change in account status means an opportunity to be included or excluded on the beneficiary designation form. Many of these conversions are being made for estate planning purposes. All conversions involve a tax liability unless there is an offsetting charitable gift strategy to create a charitable deduction to reduce or eliminate income taxes.

The above is a great topic for a newsletter article in your in-house publications.

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Twilight Years....The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently profiled a charity which granted wishes to those in their Twilight Years. This is a charity with a unique approach so appropriate to the prospect pool for planned giving.

The Twilight Wish Foundation their motto "Celebrating seniors and making dreams come true." The next time you wish to make an memorial, tribute or honor gift for your senior friends check them out.

I have added this Foundation to my Helpful Links on my web site.

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The Sandwich Generation Gets Squeezed Tighter.... Money Magazine, June 2010, page 22 issue has a table of the duel demands of children and aging parents on boomers' finances. It takes $5,534 to support an aging parent while it takes $7,650 to support an adult child living at home. 31% have delayed their retirement to support family members.

One charitable solution for the bloomer finance (when they have independent means) may be to establish a charitable gift annuity for the adult parent. The boomer gets the deduction and the parent the increased income and your charity gets an irrevocable future gift.

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Good bye Bequests.....Writing in the May/June issue of Advancing Philanthropy Russell James III, J. D., Ph. D. presents recent research on charitable bequests. Among those who indicated they had made a charitable bequest, 59% generated no charitable transfer after death. What were the reasons for such a gap? Were there last minute plan changes or jealous heirs destroying documents? For the full article download here.

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Revisiting Reverse Mortages...Reverse montages are an option for seniors. An additional option is a charitable gift annuity for the life estate in a home. For a comprehensive discussion of reverse mortgages download this 2010 article from Senior Spirit - Your Money.

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Getting old....The General Accounting Office (GAO) released a report in April that discussed some retirement issue. The GAO noted a couple age 62 has at least a 47% probability that one of the two spouse will live to the age 90. To me this says you should give serious thought to using commercial reinsurance for two-life gift annuity agreements and reinvest the gift portion until the death of the last beneficiary. I would predict with a reasonable investment return you would expect more than the ACGA 50% residuum built into the current gift annuity rate table.

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No 3% reduction rule in 2010...This year is an excellent time to consider a large charitable gift. This is because the Pease provision named after the former Congressman Donald Pease (D-OH) which created the 3% floor on itemized deduction for high-income taxpayers is not effective for 2010.

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Topic for your next bequest advertisement..."What's in the Next Chapter of Your Life?"

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Kudos Corner

This is a new section where I will be highlighting some gift expectancies and gift program elements I think will be helpful and informative, not all gifts are included.

Kudos to Aline F. Lasseter CFRE, Executive Director & Vice President of Development Holland Anderson, Major Gift Officer, New Hanover Regional Medical Foundation for creating an outstanding legacy brochure. Their legacy society is called the Beacon Society and the brochure is published in a large 8 x 10 format with the confirmation form attached. Note: This file may take a long time to load.

This approach captures the attention of prospects and donors, and indicates the credibility of the planned gift program in the total fund raising efforts.

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James E. Connell and Associates is a national consulting service devoted to increasing resources for charities using the power of charitable estate and gift planning techniques.

Pinehurst office: PO Box 3335, 15 Pinewild Drive, Pinehurst, NC 28374
Phone: 910-295-6800
Northeast office: 20982 Bayside Avenue, Rock Hall, MD 21661