Did you know that about 1/3 of the global population is charitable? Or that the United States is the only country to be ranked in the top 10 for three charitable giving behaviors: helping a stranger, donating money and volunteering time?
Those were among the facts we learned from Atiya Weiss, Executive Director of The Philanthropy Centre, JPMorgan Private Bank, who was the featured speaker at our seminar, The Professional Advisor’s To
olkit: Solutions for Charitable Clients.
Ms. Weiss discussed the ways advisors could match their clients with the right giving vehicles, and she spoke about how working with a community foundation could meet clients’ needs. At community foundations, staff has the expertise to help donors make informed, thoughtful grants locally, she said.
She also spoke about emerging trends in giving. Here are five Trends in Family Philanthropy:
- Donors are starting their giving younger and at a more sophisticated level.
- Donors are moving away from checkbook philanthropy to more strategic giving.
- Family that give together are working to engage the next generation: more than half of family foundations surveyed in 2015 are inviting members of younger generations to site visits and to sit on boards as voting members, as well as providing them with discretionary or matching funds and organizing discussions with them to talk about core values. [1]
- There’s an uptick – especially on the east and west coasts – of family giving vehicles that have decided to spend down their funds, instead of choosing to exist in perpetuity. Among the reasons: founders worry about the burdens a family foundation will place on their children, and they have a sense of urgency when working to tackle issues.
- Donor Advised Funds are exploding in popularity – and some 40 percent of private foundations also have a complementary Donor Advised Fund, which allows them flexibility that the foundation wouldn’t otherwise have.
[1] Urban Institute and National Center for Family Philanthropy 2015 National Survey of Family Foundations
