FEATURED ARTICLE: Why Is the Discount Rate So Low? (And Does It Really Matter?)
The IRS discount rate has dipped to historic lows in the past 3 years. These low rates have resulted in most donors receiving much lower charitable deductions, all other things being equal, than the deductions they would have received several years ago when the discount rate was much higher.

So what’s the big deal -- just how significant are those differences in the deduction amounts? And are they enough to suppress levels of charitable giving? Learn more about the implications of the discount rate in this month’s featured article.

• Quick Tip: Track Your Bequest Program's Success with These Bequest Manager Reports
  
• GiftWrap Version 4.2.6 Released 
  
• We're Coming to a Conference Near You Next Week
  
• Join Us for a Celebration of PG Calc’s 30 Years in Business
• Migration of GiftCalcs Clients to New GiftCalcs to Begin Soon
• PGM 7.2A Now Available Upon Request
• The Carter Center Sees Benefits from Gift Adminsitration Partnership with PG Calc

Quick Tip: Track Your Bequest Program's Success with These Bequest Manager Reports
With Bequest Manager's reporting, you can get an end-to-end view of your bequest program. Select the following reports from the Bequest Manager Analysis menu:

• The Projected Remainder Amounts report is specifically for reporting on intentions. This report comes in three versions, and shows when your intentions will become realized, as well as the intention amount, projected value, and present value of each gift. The Gift Expectancies version tells you the number of years until the gift is realized, based on donor age and selected mortality table.

• The Bequest Pipeline report presents a comprehensive picture of all expected distributions for a specified date range. Included in the report for each gift are the estimated close date, expected distribution, amount distributed to date, and amount of expected distribution remaining.

• The Bequest Transaction report focuses exclusively on closed gifts and reports each of the distributions received to date on a per-gift basis. The information in this report can be used to reconcile similar information from your accounting system.

Communication across your organization is an essential part of your bequest program’s success. These reports will enable your organization to know, on an ongoing basis, what to expect from your bequest program.

Learn more about Bequest Manager >>

GiftWrap Version 4.2.6 Released
GiftWrap version 4.2.6 was released on May 2, 2015.  This is a maintenance release that includes an enhancement to the state and custom reserve calculation function. A new mortality table, the 2012 IAR Table developed by the Society of Actuaries, has been issued and already adopted by several states (Arkansas, New Jersey, New York, and Washington; adoption is pending in Florida) for the purpose of computing reserve amounts. These states require the 2012 IAR table to be used to compute gift annuity reserves for contracts issued on or after 1/1/2015. With this release, GiftWrap has been updated to include support for the 2012 IAR Table when running either the Gift Annuity Reserves – State Method or the Gift Annuity Reserves – Custom Method functions.

Learn more about GiftWrap >>

We're Coming to a Conference Near You Next Week
Stop by our booth! PG Calc will be exhibiting at the following conferences this Spring:

Western Regional Planned Giving Conference - May 27-29
Chicago Council on Planned Giving Annual Symposium - May 28, 2015
Planned Giving Day NYC - May 28, 2015
National Capital Planned Giving Days - May 28-29

Join Us for a Celebration of PG Calc’s 30 Years in Business
PG Calc turned 30 this year and we’re celebrating! The festive cocktail reception for our clients and friends will take place on Wednesday, June 3rd from 4:30pm – 8:30pm at the Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett St., Cambridge, MA.

If you’re able to stop by, please RSVP to gary@pgcalc.com. We look forward to seeing you!

Migration of GiftCalcs Clients to New GiftCalcs to Begin Soon
We are about ready to start migrating all of our existing GiftCalcs clients to the new GiftCalcs online calculator that we have developed as part of our Marketing Services product. We will be contacting all of our GiftCalcs clients shortly with details on the migration process.



The new GiftCalcs takes a more visual approach to explaining the benefits of a planned gift than its predecessor. It starts with a “How It Works” diagram of the gift plan and then presents to the visitor a personalized version of the diagram with deduction, payment, and taxation values (where appropriate) based on facts supplied by the visitor. The combination of a diagram and words makes the new GiftCalcs a more engaging and effective tool with which your website visitors can answer their own questions and progress toward funding a planned gift. Click here to learn more about GiftCalcs or contact Dave Wolfe at 888-497-4970.

PGM 7.2A Now Available Upon Request
We have created a new version of Planned Giving Manager, PGM 7.2A, which is available to all PGM clients. This update fixes a crash bug in Customize-Organization Information, and adds the IAR 2012 mortality table to the Life Expectancy and Present Value of Future Bequest tools. It also restores a missing sentence in joint and survivor gift annuity agreements where the donor is not an annuitant (or the donors are not the annuitants) and the power to revoke paragraph has been included. All PGM clients will receive an email shortly with download instructions.  If you have any questions, please contact Client Services at support@pgcalc.com or call 888-474-2252.

The Carter Center Sees Benefits from Gift Administration Partnership with PG Calc
The Carter Center first partnered with PG Calc to administer its planned giving program in 2011. Since becoming a gift administration client, Barry Nickerson, Chief Development Officer for Estate and Gift Planning at the Carter Center, has noticed the results of this partnership:

Not only has every aspect of our work with PG Calc been above our expectations and seamless, but we’ve received more than 15 new annuities, dozens of bequests and even a charitable lead trust thanks to their work. Perhaps best of all, PG Calc’s accuracy is always ‘spot on.’

Learn more about The Carter Center >>
Learn more about Gift Administration Services >>