[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Milwaukee's philanthropic community radio show. I'm Julie Ellen Becker, president of Ellenbecker Investment Group. EIG is committed to bringing awareness to organizations in our community. This show highlights local and surrounding area nonprofits to help listeners learn how they can have an impact in our community and is for educational purposes only. We believe that helping the community is always positive and recognize the importance of providing a voice. Every organization highlighted is a qualified 501. The opinions and missions expressed on MPC do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Ellen Becker Investment group employees and leaders. Please enjoy today's show.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Welcome. This is EIG, Milwaukee's philanthropic community, with your host, Jill Economo, on Newstalk 1130 Wisna.
[00:00:54] Speaker C: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Milwaukee's philanthropic community, where we highlight people and organizations who are doing great things and making a big impact in our community. I'm your host, Jill Economo, director of community relations at Ellen Becker Investment Group.
Winston Churchill, in his speech to parliament in June of 1940, said, we make a living by what we get.
We make a life by what we give. In other words, how well we live is largely determined not by how much we get from life, but by how much we can give. So does it make sense then to take what we get in the way of income and other gifts and make it really work for us and grow exponentially so we can give more? Right? It's a great concept. Today we're going to be talking in part about various giving strategies and resources available around that and how you can make your investment really work for you so you have more to give. My first guests today are Brent Eggers, newly appointed president of the National Christian foundation, and Ryan Klund, relationship manager at National Christian foundation, or NCF. Welcome to the show today, guys.
[00:02:09] Speaker D: You're welcome. Thanks for having us.
[00:02:11] Speaker C: You're welcome.
[00:02:12] Speaker E: Thank you for the opportunity.
[00:02:13] Speaker C: You're certainly welcome. Let's start out today by you sharing what is is the National Christian foundation and how can you help people?
[00:02:22] Speaker D: Yeah, thanks for asking. And we've just loved getting to know you through the years. Jill. I know that you have a heart for generosity, and we have a heart for generosity, too, at NCF. So what we are at NCF, we're the largest christian donor advise fund in the country, actually.
We're also a leader in helping people give non cash gifts to charity. But we're local. We're right here in your backyard. We serve families all over the state of Wisconsin. Our offices are right here in Pewaukee. Really, what we are is we are a tool for families who are serious about generosity, and we help those families give to charity in a tax efficient way.
The way that I like to explain it is we're a low cost alternative to a private foundation.
It's a mix between that and a charitable checking account. That's what our founder recently said. Our mission is to mobilize resources, and we do that by inspiring generosity. I just want to give you an example as one of the families that we serve.
I recently met them a couple months ago up in the Wausau area. This was a couple that started a business about 15 years ago, a small manufacturing business, out of a spare room in their home. And they became successful through the years. And about ten years after starting the business, they got in discussions with private equity about purchasing it. And they were a christian family, gave to lots of churches and ministries, and they saw this business sale as a one time opportunity to really build a legacy of generosity, sort of that next turn in their life. And so what happened is, after the business was sold, and by the way, they built it from nothing, so there was a huge tax bill, they put about $3 million into a fund with us, and from there, it's invested, it grows, and they are able to give to countless charities. And I'm telling you, they can hardly give it away fast enough. And this keeps growing, and it's going to be a way for them to fund this next chapter of their life where they're going to give to charities and ministries. They even give anonymously to people at their church in need, which is really, really cool. But it's also going to be a legacy for their kids as well. When they pass on, their kids are going to have this kind of alternative to a foundation to give to charity, which is really cool.
[00:04:49] Speaker C: I love the idea of legacy. We do a lot of legacy planning here. Well, I don't because I'm not an advisor, but Heather does and the other advisors do, because it's all about building this relationship and setting an example right for the next generation. And so you have mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, kids coming in to understand what does my legacy look like, both from a financial standpoint and a giving standpoint. So I love the idea of legacy. And as you said, you're able to give more. When you do things right, you have more to give, which is awesome. Now, I've known Linda Maris, past president emeritus, for many years, but now, Brent, you've recently stepped into the leadership role at NCF. How did that happen? How'd you get there.
[00:05:29] Speaker E: Yeah. Thank you for the question.
Most people at NCF do have a story, and it's fun to hear their story.
My journey, like many, was really guided by the Holy Spirit. And I was seeking, in 2021, was seeking to do something more full time in ministry. And prior to that, I was in financial services.
And what really tugged in my heart was the Alan Barnhart video. And maybe your listeners are familiar with that, but Alan Barnhart is a pretty well known testimony of a very large non cash gift from their business. And it was the business ownership and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equity in a business. And what I saw from that was NCF was the solution that he was looking for, who could actually help make that gift possible. And so it was the first time I had been exposed to a business ministry. And that's really what NCF is. We are a ministry, but we operate and feel like a business. And so at that point, I decided I wanted to make this move. But it was still tough. I was still a little scared, to be honest. And what I came to is really the parable of the sower. I think about the parable of the soils. And in a lot of ways, I was that third seed, the one that was being choked out by the thorny weeds and through the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth. And what I mean by that, I guess, is the lie. You know, the lie is that if we have enough wealth, we'll be okay. And so I had to unpack that and really just trust. And that's always right. The response to everything is just trust in the Lord. So I was able to make that move, and it has been so fulfilling and so rewarding to be here.
My goals at NCF are to really continue on forward. We've been here for 24 years in Wisconsin, and we just want to see other individuals and families just help them break the attachment of money to find that everlasting peace and joy and through pursuing a deeper relationship with Jesus. And we think that biblical generosity is one of the closest portals to relationship with Jesus. And so that's our mission, is just how we can help encourage the families and individuals on that. From a metric standpoint, we have a long term goal that we would like to see $50 million a year granted out of our office to the local charities.
[00:08:04] Speaker C: Well, you also have a program, or. The way that I was introduced early on was through this program called joyful generosity, or journey of generosity. They're called jogs. And it's a great message to anybody out there that wants to live a purpose filled life. Right.
And you've got so many ways that you guys help to fulfill that if someone, if that's their goal. You mentioned that you're a donor advised fund. So explain what a DAF is in case people don't know and how it's different than a private foundation.
[00:08:41] Speaker D: Yeah, that's a good question. And as I mentioned before, it's a low cost alternative to a private foundation. The way I like to think about it is that a private foundation is kind of like a boat on the water. And so if you have a boat, there are a lot of costs associated with keeping that boat afloat. A donor advise fund is really more like a container ship. So at National Fish, we're like a container ship. We're a big foundation where families, rather than having their own boat on the water, can have a container within this large ship. And to get into the IR's considers a daf a public charity versus a private foundation. There are different kind of rules that govern them. And it may be more advantageous for families to give out of that donor advise fund. There are not to get into the specifics of those rules, but actually, we've worked with several families who may have had a private foundation, but find more simplicity in the donor advice. One, I'll give you an example, too. We had a family that came to us last year. Their father was a successful businessman and really had built his business through the years, and he wanted to leave a private foundation because he was passionate about giving to charity. So he set up this big private foundation, has six kids he passes away to go. He's called home to be with Jesus. And now these six kids are left to manage this private foundation. And as you can imagine, with six people, there's complexity. There's maybe some conflict in that family who's going to do what? And so they came to us to say, how do we make this more simple on our family? And really, at the end of the day, they just want to give to charity. That's what their dad left them. That's the legacy that he had. And that's what the kids want to do, is they want to give to charity. So all of that back end that they used to manage with the private foundation, we handle that, and they just get to say, we want this amount of money to go to the charities.
[00:10:38] Speaker C: They get to do the fun part. You don't have to get bogged down in the minutia, in other words. Yeah, well, our show usually highlights nonprofits and the work that they're doing in and for the community. But sometimes, like today, I'll interview organizations that work with nonprofits and support them in some way. So stay tuned, and we'll learn how NCF is doing just that after a commercial break.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: You're listening to EIG, Milwaukee's philanthropic community, with your host, Jill Economo, on Newstalk 1130 W I s N.
[00:11:18] Speaker C: Welcome back to Milwaukee's philanthropic community. I'm your host, Jill Economo, and I'm talking with Brent Eggers and Ryan Klund from the National Christian foundation. As I said before the break, usually our show consists of two nonprofits that complement each other in some way. But sometimes I interview organizations who work with and support nonprofits in some way. So tell us how NCF, or National Christian foundation works with the nonprofit sector.
[00:11:46] Speaker E: So we partner with a lot of charities and nonprofits. Indirectly, we are trying to help unlock resources and money to be multiplied for the kingdom. So we do that with the individuals and families that we advise and guide through our tools to help them with tax wise strategies, maybe some non cash gifting. And so the more money we can get through our platform, then indirectly, the more money charities that nonprofits will have directly, the way that we help them is by taking in stock or potentially a non cash gift. So if they have a large donor or someone who wants to make a gift and maybe it's not cash, then a lot of times they'll call us and we can try and partner with them, and we can help them take that in for really no cost. And so we are a good partner. We don't actually give out grants to charities. So that's kind of a misconception. Almost weekly, we probably get a call from a nonprofit or charity who they kind of think if they get in good with the National Christian foundation, that it's going to kind of steer them to a bunch of donors and a lot of extra money. And that's not the case. So all of our funds are donor directed. The actual givers and individuals are the ones deciding where that money goes. So it's helpful for us to know the charities and know the good work they're doing to be aware of it, but it's really not our place to influence where the money goes.
[00:13:15] Speaker C: Okay, so if you're a nonprofit listening, this is not a place to apply for grants.
[00:13:21] Speaker E: Correct.
[00:13:22] Speaker F: Okay.
[00:13:22] Speaker C: Just to make sure everybody understands that. So do you help families decide where they're gonna give?
[00:13:29] Speaker D: Yeah. Well, in a certain sense, we do. So we talk about the donor advise fund. And we've really split this, our ministry, up into three different buckets. And the donor advice fund is what we call deploy. So giving into a donor advise fund, growing that through investments and granting out to charity. But we know from serving, we serve some 20,000 families all over the country. We know from serving those families that there's a lot more going on beneath the surface. And one of those buckets we call discern. And we know that question. We know that families are asking really big questions like, where does God want me to give? How much does he want me to give? How do I share generosity with my family? I'll just give you just a short anecdote. Just a couple of weeks ago, we were with one of the givers that we serve, and he's a well known business owner in Milwaukee. You've probably been to one of his businesses many times, and he's been generous and given to many, many nonprofits. But he mentioned to me that he said he has 20 grandkids, you know, several children himself, but 20 grandkids. And the biggest thing on his mind is, how do I share generosity with my kids and my grandkids? And so what we do, we have a tool called a generosity library. We have experts from all over the country that have written in and written articles for us. What are the different types of exercises? How can a family share generosity from generation one to generation two? We also have a giving strategy guide that we'll do with our families. A passions exercise where we can identify where has God planted seed across the family? And where are the passions amongst the kids and the grandkids. And so we'll even go so far as to facilitate a family meeting if a family wants us to. So we're really helping families, you know, beneath the surface, with discerning these big questions.
[00:15:32] Speaker C: I think that word creeps up every now and again with believers and non believers. But how do I know that what I'm doing is working or that this is the direction that I should go? And having somebody walk alongside you in that journey, I think is really, really important for confirmation, right. And just for help along the way, you mentioned the power of non cash giving. Can you give us an example of that to help us better understand?
[00:16:04] Speaker E: Sure. You know, that's a really fun part of our job. It's something we spend quite a bit of time on. I would say weekly we're running illustrations. Lately we're getting a lot of real estate questions. I think just as appraised, values are very high, especially in the midwest right now in real estate. We're getting a lot of questions on that. I actually just got one today. This morning someone called and we had a pretty long discussion. They have an industrial building in Waukesha. They bought it during the recession, kind of 2011 ish period. And so it's grown quite a bit in value in that time. They care a lot about overseas mission work, and they currently fund that a lot through cash. Right now, they don't have any debt on this building. And so the illustration we ran was, if you were to give the building to the National Christian foundation and we become a passive owner, and then later on, if there's a potential sale from the building, the proceeds of that sale would actually go into their fund, and then they could give out of that money. Well, doing that versus selling the building and making cash donations has a big economic impact. And so just the illustration we ran today on that, just in this one scenario, the numbers ended up being $309,000 less in taxes and 238,000 of that was going to be more to charity. So it's kind of this multiplying effort that by giving before the sale, we can really multiply the gift. And now it's in this separate fund, which does bring a lot of joy and peace because it's in a separate little war chest now for charity, and it's earmarked over there.
So we get those questions kind of weekly and we run these illustrations. We do it at no cost, so we're happy to do it for anyone at any time.
[00:18:04] Speaker C: It just helps people get a visual a little bit better.
You told us in the first segment how a DAF differs from a private foundation. So tell us now, what makes NCF different from the community foundation or other deaf providers?
[00:18:22] Speaker E: Yeah, definitely. We are not your average daf. That's something I say once in a while. We are not your average donor advised fund sponsor. We really are a ministry. That's why we exist. But we operate like a business, and so we get compared to other businesses, but we're still a ministry at heart. We truly, I think, understand the responsibility and stewardship that someone feels who's pretty serious about giving in their faith. And that's a pretty weighty thing, that someone with a fair amount of assets and they're pretty serious about giving.
We think we understand the pressure they feel pretty, pretty strongly and how they steward those resources for the glory.
We do have some restrictions that would make us different than some of our other alternatives and peers, but we think those restrictions are a real value and that's why a lot of times people actually call us. So what I mean by that is we have a grant policy that has restrictions that will not allow money to get sent to any charities that go against our biblical values. And so that would be different from some of the other donor advice fund sponsors. And along with that, we have a pretty significant investment in our grant research team. So we have a manual process that goes through and vets every charity that can or cannot accept a grant from us. And over the years, I think we've granted over 80,000 charities. So it's a lot of time is spent, and that just is how we ensure and uphold this value statement to the people who want to come to work with us. But then there are some areas where we have greater flexibility than some of the other alternatives that could be in the investments, succession planning. We don't have an endowed money. If someone was to leave it behind, we'll make sure it gets deployed.
And then lastly, I guess I think it's just kind of more on the education side. We're really in trying to inspire and encourage biblical generosity versus philanthropy. And so that's something we really want to lean into is more the why and not just the how. We're not just a platform or software. We're really trying to help encourage people as to why this matters and why it matters to God.
[00:20:47] Speaker C: Yeah, that's awesome. Well, you've worked with EIG for many years now, so share with our listeners. In what capacity?
[00:20:57] Speaker D: Yeah, thanks. And we love Ellen Becker.
You guys have a robust service that you provide to your clients, and we want to try to provide the same type of thing just in a charitable aspect. And so, yeah, we serve several Ellen Becker clients, of course, but we're really a tool that financial advisors can use to help their clients. And so we work directly with advisors. We'll run illustrations, as Brent mentioned earlier. So, yeah, we're here when financial advisors need us.
[00:21:26] Speaker C: Okay. Well, speaking of that, if someone wants to learn more about the National Christian foundation, what's the best way for them to contact you?
[00:21:35] Speaker E: Probably our website. They can find a lot of information. That's ncfgiving.com. so ncfgiving.com. and then you can find our location, the Wisconsin office. We are located in Pewaukee. We're on Oakton Avenue, right near downtown by the lake. We welcome a confidential phone call or meeting anytime. It's really the privilege and honor of our job is being able to be relational and to actually get to know and walk alongside these families.
[00:22:08] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much, Brent Eggers and Ryan Klund from the National Christian foundation. Thanks for being here today, sharing what makes you guys so wonderful to work with and the resources that you share in the community. So thank you.
[00:22:22] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:22:23] Speaker E: Thank you, Joe.
[00:22:23] Speaker C: You're welcome. Because education is one of our core values and key pillars for doing business. We look at different ways we can provide that to clients, to employees, the nonprofit sector, the community. Stay tuned because after our short commercial break, you're going to learn how one of our wealth advisors is working with nonprofits and also how and what we as a firm offer in terms of education. So stay tuned and we'll be right back.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: Thanks for tuning in. This is Eig, Milwaukee's philanthropic community, with your host, Jill Economo on Newstalk 1130 WISn.
[00:23:05] Speaker C: Welcome back to Milwaukee's philanthropic community, brought to you by Ellen Becker Investment Group. I'm your host, Jill Economo, director of community relations. And my next guest today is one of our own, Heather Deaton, wealth advisor at Ellen Becker Investment Group. Welcome to the show today, Heather.
[00:23:21] Speaker F: Thank you, Jill. It's great to be here.
[00:23:24] Speaker C: Well, you're sometimes on the other end of the mic if you host a money sense show. Have you ever been on the guest side of things?
[00:23:30] Speaker F: I was on this program a handful of years ago.
[00:23:34] Speaker C: Okay. Well, there you go.
[00:23:36] Speaker F: But typically, I am in New York City. Yeah, this is quite a different experience.
[00:23:42] Speaker C: Well, start by giving us a little of your background in financial planning. And why is charitable giving so important to you?
[00:23:50] Speaker F: So I'm a wealth advisor here at Ellen Becker Investment Group. Like Jill, you had mentioned, I've been here nearly eight years. And in financial planning, which is really looking at every seat at the table of your team in your financial world. So looking at estate planning, looking at the investments, retirement savings, cash flow, the risk side of things with insurance, and whether that's life insurance, disability income insurance, tax planning, as well as charitable giving, end of life planning, legacy planning and education saving. So all those different components is a big puzzle. And I love to work on puzzles and I love to work with clients on being able to figure out where they are right now, where they want to be and how we're going to get them there. That's sharing their dreams, their fears, successes, failures, worries, things they're super proud of, things that they hope that they never, that never change, things they can't wait to change. That is, again, really building on an important relationship, building that team around that, like I said, that financial table, being able to make sure that we've got the right experts, the right expertise, and we help the client make the decisions that are going to get them again where they want to go, and as well as adjusting that plan, because every plan, you know, is going to have changes along the way. So being able to really make sure that we adapt to along. Along that journey for them.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: And you were actually nominated or won the volunteer of the year award last year at the Biz Times Philanthropy Awards because you're very involved in the nonprofit sector. So why is that so important to you?
[00:25:47] Speaker F: You know, giving back has always been very important to me. I have always had a heart for service. It's one of my core values is serving. And so I am very active in a few different nonprofits specifically that were named as part of my corporate volunteer of the year award. Thank you, Jill, for bringing that up. I'm the president of the board of directors for Fondi Food center, which is a nonprofit in the city of Milwaukee focused on providing healthy food access, entrepreneurial opportunity for small entrepreneurs, and also affordable land access to farmers. Because without farms, there's no farmers markets. We run two farmers markets, and we have a farm project that has 24 small family farmers farming on some land in the mequa nature preserve.
[00:26:37] Speaker C: And you get involved with your church, and you just have that servant leadership personality. And so I think when you're working with clients on charitable giving, it's a good fit. How does charitable giving fit into financial planning?
[00:26:53] Speaker F: Mike, I had, the word I mentioned before was, like, dreams and hopes, and again, the fears, the gratefulness and sharing your abundance through gratitude and generosity, that's an incredibly important piece of the wealth, whatever that looks like that people have built and how they want to share that in their lifetime, at the end, with their family on their own, that is an important part of being able to look at what you have and how you value it, right? If you've got enough for some abundance to share in whatever way that is, whether that's time, talent, financial treasures, sharing your network with nonprofits, that's all really important. And so I see that as an important piece of financial planning, because we need to be able to look at things from how do we help sustain others? How do we sustain ourselves, how do we sustain others? Many times, that's through charitable giving to nonprofits and the work that they do.
[00:27:56] Speaker C: And as I said before, the idea, if you want to live a purpose filled life, I think it's important to understand tax efficiencies and just how you can maximize your wealth. Your, quote, unquote wealth again, whatever that is, so that you can give more. I think everybody would want to do that, right? Talk about donor advised fund planning. How do you work with clients in that area?
[00:28:22] Speaker F: That a big part of a donor advise fund and giving to a donor advise fund is the instant tax benefits that you get from that gift that you give to your donor advise fund. You know, Ryan and Brent also shared about how it simplifies giving. So let's say you have a really large income year and you want to be generous and you have a short time before the end of the year to be able to give a large gift or several decent sized gifts to a bunch of different charities. And you can't even think, who do you want to actually give that big gift to? And, you know, that that number of charitable giving, that dollar amount, that's going to best help you from a tax perspective. Of course, we give out of our values. We give out of our heart, and there's a tax impact on giving as well. So if we can maximize that and maximize giving through our values in that year, say of a large income year, and you want to give a big chunk, but you can't decide on ten charities to give $5,000 to or ten charities to get $50,000 to. But you could open up a donor advised fund and you could grant, you could give it. Then you get that one time tax deduction at that time. Then you've got this amazing pool of assets that you can invest and it will grow over time. You grant out of that along the way. So maybe that one gift pre fund funds your charitable giving over the next five years, right? If you normally give $25,000 a year and you've got the assets, and it makes even better sense for you to do a bunch of that giving in one year, but you don't want to give it all to your charity in one year. Then you could give it, put it into a donor advise fund. You get that, say it's $25,000 for five years. That is $125,000. You would give that in that one year, and then you take five years to grant it. From there, you've gotten that great tax benefit that first year, and all those funds still go to charity. And if it's invested and managed wisely, it may have even been more than that with considering typically an overall upward trend in markets.
[00:30:40] Speaker C: Well, I think most people that have a heart to serve and give back would say, just as you said before, it's not about the tax benefits, obviously, it's a core value that we, that we have. But if you think about what I said at the beginning of the show about having more to give, you might realize that having some tax benefits is actually a very good thing and not self serving at all. It's just a means to be able to give more. We'll elaborate on that after we return after commercial break. So stay tuned and we'll be right back.
[00:31:15] Speaker B: You're listening to EIG, Milwaukee's philanthropic community, with your host, Jill Economo, on Newstalk 1130 W I s n.
[00:31:29] Speaker C: Welcome back to Milwaukee's philanthropic community, brought to you by Ellen Becker, investment group. I'm your host, Jill Economo, director of community relations. And I'm talking in our last segment today with Heather Deaton, wealth advisor at EIG. So, Heather, you talk to people all the time about the value of tax strategy. What are some tax efficient ways to use your investment assets to give to charity? And maybe we break that down into while you're alive and then ways to give after you pass away.
[00:32:01] Speaker F: Absolutely. We had just talked about donor advise funds.
You know, I mentioned some kind of big numbers, right? Like $25,000 across, you know, every year for five years would be 125,000. Put that all in one year into a donor advise fund. Well, that's not the goal for everyone. It's not realistic for everyone. That's not a minimum by any means. But when we think about how if bundling your giving into one year is gonna be better for you in today's tax environment, to get you above the standard of deduction, whether you open up a donor advise fund or you just give two years of giving to your charity, you say, hey, charity, I'm not gonna give to you next year. I'm gonna give you double this year, and then you'll be over the standard deduction. If that's the, you know, that's the numbers we're looking at in that first year, and then the second year, you just take the standard deduction. Now, that's in today's environment. Those, the tax rules today are set to sunset in 2026. So depending on election turnouts and election results, we don't exactly know what's going to happen. So more to come on that. But for what we do know for today in 2024, that would be a way that you'd want to get above that fairly high standard deduction right now, because oftentimes right now, the charitable giving is not actually giving you a tax benefit because you don't itemize so many people don't itemize again, we've just talked about that. You give from your heart, you give for your values, from your soul. You know, we can look at things like, what if we did it a little different? And how more beneficial would that be from a tax perspective? So that's one of the pieces to consider. Is that like bundling? Again, I mentioned just before our break about if you have a high income year, that's an even more important time to look at. You know, how could I defer more of that? And it would be by giving in one year and more so than in another year. So that's one of the pieces. Another piece, when we talk about investment assets, that could be a really important component of your giving strategy is if you have mutual funds or stocks or bonds that have a lot of capital appreciation. So you bought apple in the eighties, and you can imagine what Apple is worth today. It's a great stock, but, but maybe you want to pare that down a little bit. If you sold it, there could be a really high gain. You make a big profit, and that's great. Profits are great. The government loves to tax profits and that's what they're going to do. So if you just gave away some shares of that Apple stock, you have not sold it, so you have no profit, so you won't pay taxes. You also, that value of those shares of Apple that you gift to a charity, that counts as a, as a charitable gift. So again, whether you get a dollar for dollar tax benefit on it, it depends on where you're at with those itemized deductions. But what you've done is you've given from your heart a certain dollar amount, and you've avoided paying capital gains because you didn't try to make it cash before you gave it. Most charities take incoming stocks or mutual funds, any kind of investment assets you want to check with your charity, you know, before you get too far into the planning on it. Because if you have your special charity that they don't have a capacity to take it in, then you'd want to maybe consider something different. You can also gift highly appreciated securities to a donor advice fund. So again, that's if it made sense in that bigger picture, planning to open up a daf, that would be a way to fund it.
So that's a piece of it.
Looking at personal property, any kind of art, antiques, collections, those can be gifted as well. And you would do that to, if you had a charity that was going to use it, right? If you have an art collection and you want to give that to an art museum, they'd actually be able to use it. Now, you'd. That tax deduction that you would get. I kind of use air quotes because again, we're not sure if a person's itemizing or not. That's actually going to be just whatever, whatever you, the giver, paid for that art collection, but you've avoided selling it and you've avoided that capital gain, but you've still been able to gift it and you've given it to a place that could really use it.
[00:36:37] Speaker C: How does it change or how does it differ? Does it after you pass away?
[00:36:42] Speaker F: Oh, well, so then after you pass away, that's some different planning. Now that is going to also be in a bigger estate tax situation. So that depends on how much you've given away in your lifetime and how much you've got if you're married, if you're not. So the way I look at that is, yeah, there's a component on the estate tax side that would be a very specific planning. But if we just think of, hey, I need to keep everything I have right now so I make sure that I can remain independent and I'm not a burden to somebody, but at my death, charity can take it. That's the ways we want to look at this, too. If your generosity, whether you have generosity, are able to be charitably, in kind now and or at death, some of those pieces would be if you just write them into. Write a charity into your will or into your revocable living trust. That's an even better way to do estate planning. I'm not an estate planning attorney, but I will just say that trusts are really great and we could always have a conversation about that and introduce you to an attorney, but that would be where you actually name them in your will. And so everything goes into your estate, and your will, or your revocable living trust breaks that up and sends the charity what it is supposed to send it.
In addition, you can just have a charity as a beneficiary on any of your accounts. If we think about what people have at the end, again, tax wise. Right? Tax hat on.
If you've got iras, you've got tax deferred retirement accounts, and you've also got, say, a brokerage account or a taxable account or funds in your trust, there's a. It kind of matters who you give it to. So that would be from when I look at just those two options. Right. Tax deferred assets or taxable assets. Ideally, you'd have the tax deferred. The iras go to charity because they're going to take that in. Charities don't pay taxes. If your family inherits your iras from you, they're going to pay taxes when they take it out. And the rules right now are they have to take it out within ten years, are going to be taxed as their income. So if we think like, oh, I've got a brokerage account and I've got an IRA, I want half of half, you know, I want half to go to my kids and I want to have to go to charity. That's an important piece as far as who's going to get what. So typically it's better, again, you know, this is not advice, but typically it's better to give the IRA to the charity because then the charity gets to keep all of it. They don't pay taxes on it. And then your kids could keep the brokerage account, and that's a whole separate tax discussion on that side of it. But it's beneficial.
[00:39:35] Speaker C: I know that this might seem a bit overwhelming for people to comprehend in a short time together, and you can always reach out to Heather for more questions afterwards. But I want to just camp a little bit on nonprofits. How do you support them or in what ways are you supporting nonprofits through your role here as an advisor?
[00:39:57] Speaker F: Yeah. Thank you.
Participating in EIG's nonprofit leadership training that I know we have a couple of sessions each year for that, I offer two nonprofits an educational seminar that gives, you know, an overview of these, a lot of these different topics that we talked about today. So the leadership, the development directors, the staff can better understand these tools and these strategies so they can better talk to their donors and prospective donors. I also offer to have a session with their donors. So say a nonprofit has a donor appreciation event and they want to have a speaker come in and talk about some things. Well, I can come and talk about tax efficient ways to give, to be able to give more because you have more, because you've paid less tax. And so you can see how that could be beneficial for the donors, obviously, as well as those nonprofits, if they have some of their, you know, most dedicated donors that come to those events.
[00:41:01] Speaker C: Well, you can see or hear, rather, that Heather has a lot of ways that she is offering guidance and support to the nonprofit sector. Heather, give a shout out as far as what's the best way for people to get ahold of you?
[00:41:16] Speaker F: Yeah, I'm pretty passionate about charitable giving, but I also want to stress that, you know, for our clients that go through their lives and through retirement, you know, we do want them to spend on themselves, too. It's not only about giving away, but it's just about making really meeting them and building this strategy that's going to fit all their goals. So to get in touch with me, you can find me on the EIG website, that's ellenbecker.com, or call the office.
[00:41:44] Speaker C: At 262-691-3200 or heatherelenbecker.com to get directly to you. So if you're a nonprofit out there and you know that you really want to tap into Heather's knowledge and have her come and speak to your donor base or some event you're doing, you can reach out directly to
[email protected]. and as an additional offering, we as a firm provide leadership training on various topics to nonprofits a few times a year. So you can check our website for details on that. So thank you, Heather, for sharing your passion about charitable giving in ways that you help the sector and help clients in general. Thanks for participating today.
[00:42:29] Speaker F: Thank you, Jill.
[00:42:30] Speaker C: You're welcome. If you'd like further information about what we talked about, you can reach out directly to me or Heather at EIG or Brent Orion at National Christian foundation. And if you know of a great organization doing great work in our community that you think would be a great guest for our show, you can email
[email protected].
if you enjoy hearing about great things going on and great resources that are provided in our community, tune in on Sunday mornings at ten to Milwaukee's philanthropic community to learn more about the work people and organizations are doing to make Milwaukee a great place. You can tune into Newstalk 1130 on your radio, your computer or on your cell phone via the iHeartRadio app. You can also visit our
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So if you agree with Sir Winston Churchill about living a meaningful life by giving, think about how you want to do that. Our guests have shared today how they're making an impact through giving. What are you interested in doing, and how can you best use your gifts and talents to make an impact in the life of another? Anything you do comes back to bless you in so many more ways than you may ever. No. So I encourage you to find a way to be a blessing and give a blessing. Thanks for listening today and have a great day.
