Professional advisors can play a key role with clients in helping them understand options relating to philanthropy. Whether it is lawyers, accountants, investment advisors or many other types of professionals having a solid understanding of charities and philanthropy can be very useful. Many clients at a certain point in their lives are more interested in giving money away than making it. Professional advisors need to understand this change or be at risk for prematurely losing their most valuable clients. Professional advisors, and their use of networks and subject matter experts, can add tremendous value to their clients.
As many philanthropists have found, giving money away can be pleasurable or painful. It is often more difficult to donate effectively than it is to earn the money in the first place. Canadians donate about $19 billion per year and professional advisors can assist clients in being more strategic and creating a greater impact in the use of their charitable resources.
Some professional advisors are reluctant to bring up the topic of philanthropy with their clients – thinking of it as a highly personal or emotional topic. Some professional advisors are concerned that they don’t understand philanthropy and don’t want to talk to their clients about topics that they are not comfortable with.
In this course, charity lawyer Mark Blumberg discusses:
• What is a Philanthropist? Why being a philanthropist can be seen as a bad thing by some?
• What is planned giving and how can this affect your clients’ choices?
• The importance of values when analyzing charities
• Why all charities are not equal and bad ways to pick a charity
• Many important elements in understanding a good, effective, reliable and sustainable charity
• Red flags with charities and how you and your clients can avoid embarrassment and involvement with a charity scam
• Charity ratings and ratios – how you can be confidently wrong in picking charities
• Ideas and resources for due diligence on charities
• Why a major gift is not a merger and acquisition
• Information gleaned by donors and reporters from public filings and why public filings are not always accessible to the public
• How to reduce costs and increase the impact of giving
This 90-minute course is geared towards professional advisors who are interested in philanthropy.