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October 15, 2009

National Conference on Philanthropic Planning
What Can Fund Raisers Expect in 2020?

By 2020, America will have far more millionaires than today and they will be motivated by even greater tax incentives to give to charity, a leading expert on planned giving told an audience of fund raisers at the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning’s national conference today.

Charles Schultz, chief executive of Crescendo Interactive, a planned-giving software and consulting company, in Camarillo, Calif., said every charity today has at least 700 potential supporters with estates worth at least $1-million. By 2020, he said, that number will rise to 1,000.

And, he said, at the same time wealth will have grown, taxes will have gone up, too –with rates up to 50 percent, he predicted, plus additional taxes to pay for Social Security and Medicare . As a result, many donors may want to give to charity as a way to save money on their taxes.

Charities are likely to benefit, too, he said, from the involvement of professional advisers —like financial planners, accountants, and lawyers – who will be more likely to recommend charitable giving as part of estate and tax plans. At least half of all gifts will come with the advice of professional advisers, he said, up from 30 to 40 percent today.

Charities and their fund raisers will increasingly turn to e-mail, Web sites, and other ways to attract, contact, and interact with donors online. By 2020, he said, 90 percent of contacts with donors will be electronic and 10 percent in print. That trend, he said, will be fueled in part by what he called “green donors”, people interested in cutting their consumption of paper.

One prediction Mr. Schultz offered for the not-so-distant future: Increased interest in charitable remainder trusts. He said the number of such gifts will surge next year before capital-gains tax rates are scheduled to change the following year.

— Debra E. Blum

Thursday October 15, 2009 | Permalink

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