Marketing Corner: Giving Tuesday With a Twist

As a general rule, when it comes to planned giving marketing at year-end, we advise our clients to stop distributing planned giving communications by November 1. Most organizations are in high gear with their end-of-year annual solicitations intended for outright giving. But this year is different!

Donors are doing their tax planning for the first time under the new tax law. Emphasizing to donors that this December is their last chance to put smart planning into action for 2018 gives charities a prime opportunity to promote tax-smart outright gifts – the IRA Charitable Rollover and gifts of Appreciated Assets. Both offer tax benefits, even for donors who no longer will be itemizing their deductions.

In addition to email, you can use the following strategies to promote tax-smart gifts in year-end solicitations:

• Postscript on the bottom of the solicitation letter
• Handwritten note on the letter for the donor who might be considering a large gift
• Giving Tuesday - November 27th!!

A few years ago, a national hospital’s planned giving staff added messaging to the hospital’s general fundraising solicitations, including their Giving Tuesday email. The result: they received inquiries from prospects they would have missed had they not taken action. Donors will appreciate being reminded how tax-smart outright gifts can reduce their taxes, so spread the word!

1099-Rs and Year-End Order of Operations

This is a brief advance notice that we will be sending our annual “1099-Rs and Year-End Order of Operations” email message to all GiftWrap clients around the end of November. This alert goes out to remind gift administration professionals working with life income gifts of the required actions to close out the calendar year, run Year-End Update, and satisfy tax reporting requirements. Be on the lookout for this communication and let us know if you have not received it by the first week of December.

If you have any questions, please contact PG Calc Client Services by calling 888-474-2252, or email support@pgcalc.com.

CGA Manual Updated to Reflect New Rates, New Law, and More

On November 13, we released our annual update of the electronic version of Charitable Gift Annuities: The Complete Resource Manual. If you have a question related to gift annuities, you’ll find the answer in the CGA Manual. You’ll also find sample annuity agreements for just about every situation, scores of case examples, and over 40 downloadable prototype documents that you are welcome to adapt and use as you wish. Among hundreds of revisions, clarifications, and additions, this latest update incorporates changes throughout the manual to reflect provisions in the new tax law that became effective January 1, 2018, findings from the most recent ACGA survey that was released at the April 2018 ACGA Conference, and the new ACGA rates that became effective July 1, 2018.

Latest Update to PG Calc's GiftWrap 

The latest update to our GiftWrap gift administration software will be available as of November 23rd. Enhancements to the GiftWrap system include the following:

• various security enhancements, further ensuring the integrity of GiftWrap client data
• a number of interface enhancements to clarify and facilitate application use
• a variety of bug fixes, enhancing the stability and reliability of the GiftWrap application

For those customers using the hosted version of GiftWrap, you will have access to new features when you login after the update has been rolled out. For customers who run the enterprise edition, an update package will be made available to you approximately two weeks after the release date.

If you would like hands-on experience with our GiftWrap application, sign up for a free GiftWrap evaluation. Click on the Free Trial tab.

If you have any questions, please contact PG Calc Client Services by calling 888-474-2252, or email support@pgcalc.com.

Holiday Season Client Services Coverage

The PG Calc Client Services team is available to respond to support calls and emails on our regular schedule, 8:30am - 6:30pm ET, Monday – Friday, throughout the month of December, with the exception of Tuesday, December 25, and New Year's Day. Note that we will close early on December 24 and 31.

We want to partner with you to help achieve your planned giving success - call us at 888-474-2252 or email support@pgcalc.com.

Register Now for PG Calc Webinars in 2019

Last month, we shared a list of the dates, presenters, and topics that we will be offering in our monthly webinars for 2019. We now have added a description for each session and opened registration. Our first webinar of the new year will be “What, Me Worry? When to Say No (or Yes!) to a Gift,” which will be presented by our own Jeff Lydenberg on January 31. Go to the PG Calc website and click on the titles you’re interested in to learn more about each of our upcoming webinars or to register. Sign up for the whole series and you’ll get twelve webinars for the price of nine. We hope you’ll join us!

Natural Lands Loves Working with PG Calc

Natural Lands is dedicated to preserving and nurturing nature’s wonders while creating opportunities for joy and discovery in the outdoors for everyone. As the Greater Philadelphia region’s oldest and largest land conservation organization, Natural Lands has preserved more than 125,000 acres, including 43 nature preserves totaling more than 23,000 acres. Some 2.5 million people live within five miles of land under the organization’s protection. "Land for life, nature for all." 

Suzanne Barton, Director of Planned Giving at Natural Lands, had this to say about PG Calc's Fee-for-Calcs service: 

“We use PG Calc for running fee-based gift illustrations (Fee-for-Calcs) and have been doing so for the last four years. I love working with them. They are my ”go-to” anytime I have gift annuity questions. I can count on PG Calc for being current on best practices, and Jen, Tina, and their colleagues always provide timely and thoughtful advice.”

Learn more about Natural Lands.

PG Calc's Fee-for-Calcs gift calculation service provides a deduction calculation for any planned gift, as well as gift annuity taxation information. Learn more about PG Calc Gift Calculation Services.