Category Archives: Financial Times Column

The Foundations of Tax-Efficient Giving

May 15, 2008 – 9:00 am

This is my most recent On Philanthropy Column for the Financial Times. You can find an archive of past columns here.

The Foundations of Tax-Efficient Giving
By Sean Stannard-Stockton
May 10, 2008: Link to original story on FT.com

Many people think of charitable giving as an item in their annual budget, and measure it as a percentage of income. But if you own financial assets such as real estate or a portfolio of stocks and bonds, you should consider an endowment approach to your philanthropy.

Ultra-wealthy philanthropists have long created family foundations, which they fund with a single, large gift. From then on, their charitable giving is done out of the foundation – typically at a rate equal to about 5 per cent of the assets in it. Today, the falling costs of administering a foundation, or the alternative vehicle known as a donor-advised fund, mean that anyone who gives at least $500 a year to charity should consider taking a similar approach.

The tax benefits of endowing your charitable giving are significant. Donors receive an income tax deduction when they make a gift to a private foundation or donor-advised fund. This means that by “front-loading” your charitable giving by shifting assets equal to multiple years of expected donations into a charitable vehicle, you obtain multiple years’ worth of income tax deductions today.

The concept of present value says money received today is worth more than equal amounts delivered in the future (for instance, you would rather I gave you $100 today than promise to pay it in 10 years). By endowing your charitable giving, you will pull the income tax deduction that you would normally receive in the future into the current tax year.

Once in a charitable vehicle, your assets are shielded from taxation (assets in donor-advised funds owe no taxes on capital gains, dividends or interest and assets in foundations pay only a 1-2 per cent “excise tax”). Just as IRAs and 401ks allow individuals to save for retirement in a tax-advantaged account, endowed charitable vehicles give a similar benefit to philanthropists. But if, instead, you keep your assets in a taxable account and make annual gifts to charity, you will have to pay taxes on the capital gains, dividends and interest generated each year.

Endowing your philanthropy makes it much easier to follow the golden rule of tax-smart charitable giving: always donate with your most highly appreciated asset. When you give cash to a charity, you receive an income tax deduction. But when you give an appreciated asset (shares of stock that have gone up in value, for example, or a piece of real estate bought years ago), you receive the same income tax deduction and avoid capital gains tax on the appreciation.

You can also achieve this advantage simply by replacing your annual cash gifts to charity with transfers of appreciated assets. But if you make numerous charitable gifts each year, or your most highly appreciated asset is not something you can easily give fractional interests in (such as real estate), then using a private foundation or donor-advised fund will make following the golden rule much easier.

Using a charitable vehicle also means that you can separate the tax aspects of your giving from the personal and emotional reasons that drive philanthropy. When endowing your giving, you can work with your accountant and financial adviser to select the assets that make the most sense to fund your donations with and to time the gift for the highest financial benefit.

Once your charitable vehicle is funded, the gifts you make to non-profits will not have tax consequences. You will be free to make your donations in the amounts and on the timeline that does the most good in the world.

For maximum financial advantage, you should fund your charitable vehicle with 20 times the amount of your annual giving. However, if your asset base does not allow for a gift of this size, donating any amount greater than one year of giving will enhance your financial situation.

The suggestion of funding with 20 times annual giving comes from the fact that if the assets in your philanthropic vehicle are invested to achieve 8 per cent annual returns, you will be able to make annual grants of 5 per cent (one 20th) of the assets and increase your giving by 3 per cent each year to keep up with inflation. Barring unexpectedly bad investment performance, your charitable vehicle will be able to sustain this level of giving forever, without any additional funding from you.

Most people find that endowing their giving has many non-tax related benefits as well. With a private foundation, for instance, you can name relatives to join the board and make it part of your family tradition to come together and talk about what charitable causes are important to you and why. By organizing your giving, you may also find that you focus it on a smaller set of causes that are deeply important to you. Focused giving is a trait that most philanthropic advisers encourage their clients to adopt to maximize impact.

While at its core philanthropy comes from the heart, by being financially savvy you can reduce the cost of your giving and do more good in the world.

The writer is a principal and director of tactical philanthropy at Ensemble Capital Management and author of the blog TacticalPhilanthropy.com

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Philanthropic Investment Strategy, Philanthropy | Comments (0)

The Donor Landscape of 2033 is Bright

March 3, 2008 – 9:35 am

My most recent column for the Financial Times:

The donor landscape of 2033 is bright

By Sean Stannard-Stockton

Published: March 1, 2008

Philanthropy is undergoing a transformational shift. While most donors continue to give in the same ways they have for 100 years, the vanguard of philanthropy is busily reforming the fabric of the charitable sector.

Often referred to as the “social capital markets” and characterized by a model of giving that mirrors the financial markets, this emerging model is still in its infancy. Since you can create only that which you imagine, I thought I would take a quick trip 25 years into the future to see what philanthropy might become.

For many donors, the year 2033 does not look a whole lot different from 2008. Many people simply write checks to charities and devote the bulk of their giving to non-profit organizations in their community.

But for some donors, the landscape is radically different. The “social stock exchanges” that became popular between 2011 and 2019 now include all but a few large non-profits and many small but ambitious start-ups.

These exchanges compete for non-profit listings. Exchanges include big national networks with some international organizations, down to small local exchanges.

The business of giving money away is particularly different for large private foundations and smaller “impact-oriented” foundations. Instead of expecting non-profits to solicit them for grants, these foundations’ “impact committees” and “program analysts” spend their days looking for and researching potential grantees. Given the considerable information disclosure required by the exchanges, much of the information required for grantee research is available online. Third-party evaluation firms provide regular reports on listed non-profits and these reports are a valuable input for the foundations.

While the cost to non-profits of conforming to the exchanges’ information disclosure requirements is steep, once listed they find grant dollars come looking for them rather than the other way round. Exchange-listed non-profits tend to have small fund-raising groups that focus on “donor relations”. They market the non-profit by attending “road shows” where they have the chance to make their case.

In the early days of the social stock exchanges, many funders and non-profits worried that the passion and joy of giving would be swept away, given the exchanges’ resemblance to financial markets. But the truth proved to be something else entirely. As funders became comfortable with the idea that sharing information with other donors provided greater social impact, a sense of community and camaraderie developed that set the social exchanges apart from the traditional financial markets. Non-profit presentations at the regular “road shows” were frequently interrupted by spontaneous conversations in the audience as funders debated the potential of each non-profit and canvassed for other people to join them in sponsoring their favorites. Working together, funders often organized big public funds that they would then direct at specific social problems. The non-profit competition for these funds was fierce but even those not funded felt the competition had helped them to improve.

Now in 2033, more and more individuals of moderate incomes are becoming interested in the social markets. Most Americans now have a donor-advised fund, since all big banks offer a zero-minimum, no-fee account that can be linked to your checking account. A quick search on Google Finance gives individuals access to multiple third-party evaluations of exchange-listed non-profits. International giving is even coming into vogue for the small donor now, so many “donor funds” managed by the largest foundations offer low-cost access to a basket of top-rated non-profits with particular causes.

The early 2030s are a good time for funders and non-profits in the US. Funding innovations are featured by the financial press and for-profit firms are constantly working to develop products and services for the social capital markets. But recently there has been some consolidation among the exchanges and some local non-profits fear funding will dry up for organizations without national scope. The default on a $1bn bond issued by a non-profit offering vaccines in Africa has sent shockwaves through the markets, and other non-profits have seen the availability of credit dry up. There are challenges in 2033 but it is an exciting time to be a philanthropist.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Capital Markets, Philanthropy | Comments (0)

Satisfaction Guaranteed by a Little Research

February 4, 2008 – 10:18 am

My most recent column for the Financial Times:

Are you a hot-tip donor? If you are reading this newspaper, you are probably sophisticated enough not to chase the stock of a company that your friend’s sister’s husband says has a hot new product.

But if you are like most people, you decide which non-profits to support using the recommendations of friends and family or solicitations from non-profits themselves.

In the case of identifying local charities that support your community, using your personal network probably is a good way of finding great non-profits. When the employees, volunteers and people served are all located in your community, it is often clear to friends and neighbours which organisations really make a difference. But what about national organisations that tackle broad problems such as education reform, environmental protection or poverty?

Donors often give based on a non-profit’s cause rather than the effectiveness of the organisation. Investors rarely make the same mistake. If a person wants to invest in the computer business because he believes that more and more people will need multiple PCs in the coming years, he will realise that selecting Dell, Hewlett-Packard or Apple can lead to very different outcomes.

Likewise, selecting a cause is only the first step in choosing a non-profit to support. Next, a donor must try to distinguish between the various non-profits working on that cause and select the one that most effectively deals with the issue in a way that matches the donor’s beliefs.

Both Environmental Defense and Defenders of Wildlife are non-profits that work on environmental issues. Both have been cited by multiple sources as top-performing non-profits. But that does not make them interchangeable.

Environmental Defense seeks to “protect the environmental rights of all people”, while Defenders of Wildlife is “dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants”, with a focus on predators. Donors who want to protect the environment must decide whether their desire is rooted in protecting the rights of humans or the rights of animals.

To further its mission, Defenders of Wildlife primarily uses education, advocacy and compensating ranchers for livestock lost to wild predators. Environmental Defense is known for partnering corporations such as McDonald’s and FedEx to reduce their environmental impact. It also seeks to harness market forces for environmental progress.

Next time you are solicited to donate to charity, research why the non-profit has its mission and how it seeks to achieve its aims. You can perform initial research relatively quickly with a couple of searches online and a phone call to the organization. Not only will you know that your money is supporting something you believe in but also that it is being used in a way that makes sense to you. By identifying non-profits that fit your values and beliefs, you will find giving much more satisfying and may well want to become even more involved.

Most people tend to find new non-profits through their personal network or direct solicitations from a charity. However, a number of websites have sprung up that seek to match donors with non-profits and projects that match their unique outlook.

Kiva.org helps donors connect with, and lend money to, entrepreneurs and small businesses in developing countries. By engaging in this sort of microfinance, donors hope to enable the working poor to move towards economic independence.

DonorsChoose.org connects donors to public school teachers with specific needs in their classroom. By searching through the DonorsChoose database, individuals can find specific teachers with needs that resonate with them.

GlobalGiving.org calls itself a marketplace for goodness. Donors can use the site to find grassroots charity projects round the world. After funding a project, donors receive regular updates from project leaders informing them of the progress they have made. GlobalGiving even guarantees that donors will have a positive giving experience. Unhappy donors receive a refund in the form of a certificate that they can use to make a gift to another project.

We are in the early stages of philanthropic capital markets. Donors do not yet have access to the sophisticated screening tools, professional research and robust marketplaces that help individual investors approach money management strategically. But resources are available to donors who seek them. By finding non-profits that further the causes you care about through strategies to your liking, you can take a large step towards becoming a high-impact donor.

The writer is a principal and director of tactical philanthropy at Ensemble Capital Management and author of the blog TacticalPhilanthropy.com.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, Impact Measurement, Philanthropy | Comments (0)

Time to take a hard-nosed look at giving

January 10, 2008 – 11:33 am

My most recent column for the Financial Times was published last weekend. You can find it on the Financial Times site here.

Time to take a hard-nosed look at giving

By Sean Stannard-Stockton

Published January 5, 2008|Available on FT.com

Every end is a new beginning. Having said goodbye to 2007, now is the time to look forward to 2008 and decide what kind of philanthropist you want to be. Are you satisfied being part of the majority of Americans who rush to fulfil their philanthropic obligations in a flurry of year-end giving? Or will this be the year that you get organised and maximise the impact of your philanthropic capital?

Recently, the Financial Times reported on the growing ranks of “hard-nosed philanthropists”. These donors are “part of a new breed of wealthy charitable donors: strategic philanthropists, passionate about their causes, who want to ensure their philanthropic dollars have the greatest return – and impact – possible”.

How can you become a hard-nosed philanthropist in 2008? The first thing to do is to create a philanthropic vehicle so you can separate the tax implications of your giving from your altruistic motivation. When you fund a philanthropic vehicle such as a private foundation or a donor-advised fund (a kind of “charitable checking account” similar to a private foundation), you receive a tax deduction at the time the money goes into the account. This means you can move money into your philanthropic account on the timeline that fits your tax situation while making gifts to non-profit organisations when it fits your charitable goals. An amazing 50 per cent of all charitable donations are made between Thanksgiving and the new year. By setting up a philanthropic vehicle, you will free yourself from the year-end scramble and maximise the tax benefits of your giving.

Most people simply write cheques to the non-profit organisations that they support. But hard-nosed philanthropists know the first rule of tax-smart giving: always give with your most highly appreciated assets. When you write a cheque, you get an income tax deduction for the value of your donation. When you make a gift of an appreciated asset (such as a stock that has risen in value), you get both an income tax deduction for the full value of the asset and avoid paying capital gains tax on the appreciation.

Unfortunately, if you make multiple donations each year, it can be cumbersome to re-evaluate your asset base to identify your most highly appreciated assets and then complete a transfer to each non-profit you support. By setting up a philanthropic vehicle, you can work with your financial advisers to identify the best assets to use for your giving and transfer them in a single transaction to your philanthropic account.

Your two main choices for a philanthropic vehicle are a private foundation or a donor-advised fund. A donor-advised fund generally makes sense if you give $500 or more to charity each year. A private foundation may be cost effective if you give at least $25,000. Beyond cost considerations, choosing between the two rests on the way you like to give, the type of appreciated assets you plan to give, and the level of your family’s involvement.

Foundations have more flexibility to let you do things such as lend money to non-profit organisations, give internationally or “invest” in philanthropic projects. However, only gifts of cash or common stock to a foundation qualify for a full market value income tax deduction. A donor-advised fund is more tax efficient for donors whose most highly appreciated assets include items other than stocks.

Finally, while a family can be involved in the decision-making process of which non-profits to support from a donor-advised fund, only a private foundation allows for the creation of an official board that family members can join.

Most donors have never taken a “hard-nosed” look at how much they can afford to give. From a tax standpoint, it makes sense to move as much of your total planned lifetime giving into a philanthropic account as you feel comfortable committing to. The benefits of this strategy include realising tax deductions sooner and allowing your assets to increase in the tax-advantaged philanthropic account.

One good resource is Wealthy and Wise by Claude Rosenberg. In this book, Rosenberg gives statistical models that demonstrate most people can afford to give far more to charity without unduly risking their financial security. Another source for donors is a group called Bolder Giving. Founded by Anne and Christopher Ellinger, authors of We Gave Away a Fortune, Bolder Giving seeks to help donors give at their full potential.

This year, make your new year’s resolution a decision to become a hard-nosed philanthropist. Next December, when others are breathlessly writing cheques before the tax year ends, the hard-nosed look you took at your giving earlier in the year will be paying off.

The writer is a principal and director of tactical philanthropy at Ensemble Capital Management and author of the blog TacticalPhilanthropy.com

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in New Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Tactics | Comments (2)

How to make your giving more effective

November 26, 2007 – 12:25 pm

My most recent On Philanthropy column for the Financial Times is below. You can find the archive of all my past columns here.

Originally Published: November 24, 2007 in the Financial Times

Thanksgiving is a time to “give thanks”, but giving thanks well is harder than you think. We are in the middle of Giving Season, that time of year when many Americans donate time or money to their favourite non-profit. Most people give reactively to a variety of causes that catch their attention for one reason or another. There is a better way to celebrate the Giving Season.

This year, when you are making your holiday gift list, consider one of these excellent books that will show you and your family how to “give thanks” well and find a deeper meaning to financial success.

Tracy Gary is a philanthropist and donor adviser extraordinaire. Born into a very wealthy family, Gary decided at the age of 25 to give away all of her money. Now in her 50s, she lives on $45,000 a year. She spends her time teaching donors how to give well and recently published a new edition of her book Inspired Philanthropy: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Giving Plan and Leaving a Legacy.

Inspired Philanthropy is about how to move from reactive giving, giving to the charities that ask, to pro-active giving, giving to the non-profits whose missions match your values and beliefs. It is full of practical suggestions, and simple worksheets, and even includes a CD-ROM full of tools to make you a better philanthropist. Unlike a tax or estate planning book targeting the very wealthy, Inspired Philanthropy gives relevant advice for people who volunteer their time, donate $100 a year or $1m.

In addition to covering such nuts and bolts territory as creating a mission statement, how much to give and where to give, Inspired Philanthropy covers advanced areas that even experienced philanthropists will find instructive. Sections covering concepts such as engaging effectively with the non-profits you support, networking with other big donors and planning for your heirs will help big donors ramp up their impact to a higher level.

There are hundreds of books explaining how to spend, save and invest money well, but only a few that teach how to give effectively. Inspired Philanthropy was first published 10 years ago, and the newest edition is updated and is still the best book on the subject. Personal financial planning expert Suze Orman wrote the introduction and a new section on legacy planning was written with financial and philanthropic adviser Phil Cubeta.

There are only four things that money can be used for: spending, saving, paying taxes or giving away. I believe the tools and strategies employed to address these objectives should not be viewed in isolation. In the book Beyond Success: Building a Personal, Financial, and Philanthropic Legacy, author Randall Ottinger makes exactly this case.

A successful high-tech executive from a wealthy family, Ottinger interviewed a who’s who of successful Americans for Beyond Success. Through relating these conversations and presenting short stories of people who have moved beyond financial success to create a meaningful intersection of wealth, family and philanthropy, Ottinger leads the reader to a broader understanding of success.

Ottinger weaves together the various stories he tells to provide a road map for crossing a terrain he sees as made up of metaphysical mountains and valleys, where people get lost in their search for significance, leadership and success. Eight common practices of people who complete the journey are described at length as well.

Research shows that amazing benefits result from teaching children about philanthropy at a young age. Philanthropy provides an ideal venue through which children can be engaged on subjects such as investing, responsibility and family values. There is probably no better book for young givers than A Kid’s Guide to Giving by Freddi Zeiler. Zeiler was just 14 when she wrote this book to help other kids learn about charitable giving. With many tips and tricks for leveraging donations (from throwing a bake sale for charity to getting a local business to sponsor a matching gift), this accessible book is a great introduction to philanthropy. It is so well written that many parents will find themselves reading it when their kids are done.

This holiday season, give the gift of giving well. The books above will delight the budding or experienced philanthropist on your list. By helping them give well, you’ll be “paying it forward”, as your gift turns into an investment in a better world.

The writer is a principal and director of tactical philanthropy at Ensemble Capital Management and author of the blog TacticalPhilanthropy.com

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, Grantmaking, Philanthropy | Comments (0)

Charitable Lead Trust Trend

October 29, 2007 – 9:12 am

My most recent column in the Financial Times discusses the coming boom in charitable lead trusts and how they can be used to prepare children for responsible oversight of wealth.

I don’t write the headline of my columns, so I laughed out loud when I saw the headline writer had titled my column “Children need not be taxing”. As a father of two young kids, I can tell you that statement is objectively false!

Children need not be taxing
By Sean Stannard-Stockton
October 26, 2007

An old philanthropic planning technique is ready to explode in popularity. Parents have long used charitable lead trusts to make tax-free gifts to their children while using philanthropy as a way to prepare them for wealth. But as life expectancies rise and people become wealthier sooner, this obscure trust is enjoying a renaissance among young millionaires.

Affluent families used to either inherit wealth or earn it over a long career. Today, most wealthy individuals are self-made and an important subset, especially in the technology sector, is making millions before starting a family. Those who inherited wealth in the past often did so while building their own financial security. Now, some do not receive their inheritance until…

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Philanthropic Investment Strategy, Philanthropy, Tactics | Comments (0)

Evaluating High-Impact Nonprofits

September 28, 2007 – 5:55 pm

My column On Philanthropy appears monthly in the Financial Times. This article is in the Wealth at the Weekend section of the September 29 edition. You can read the column on the Financial Times website here. If you have comments or questions I encourage you to leave a comment on this post, email me or send the Financial Times a letter to the editor.

True measure of giving won’t always add up

By Sean Stannard-Stockton

Our understanding of philanthropy is changing from “giving money away” to “making social investments”. But this admirable shift is leading some donors mistakenly to focus on how charities spend donations, instead of understanding whether the organisations they support are making a difference.

When investors evaluate for-profit companies, they ultimately need to answer one question: how much money will the company make? The non-profit equivalent, the charity’s “profit”, is the impact charities have on their chosen cause. Better living conditions, improved education and a cleaner environment are examples of impact. While these outcomes can be difficult to evaluate, they are the only true measures of whether a charity is a good investment.

Unfortunately, many donors focus on easily measured financial data instead of doing the hard work of trying to understand the impact. Nowhere is this more apparent than at the non-profit evaluator Charity Navigator, which rates charities based on a set of financial ratios. These metrics attempt to convey how financially efficient a charity is, but shed no light on what, if any, social benefit it is generating. Even the claim of measuring efficiency is suspect, since the metrics do not distinguish between wasteful overheads and such worthwhile expenses as good employees and strong technology.

Charity Navigator is well-intentioned, but its ratings ignore the impact of a charity’s programmes. The group’s website states “ . . . we do not currently evaluate the quality of the programmes and services a charity provides”.

Albert Einstein is said to have had a sign in his office that read: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” Non-profit impact experts Heather McLeod Grant and Leslie R. Crutchfield demonstrated this well in a recent article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review: “When we looked at traditional measures of non-profit efficiency, many [high-impact charities] didn’t score well, because they don’t adhere to misleading metrics such as overhead ratios.” Charity Navigator rates Habitat for Humanity International’s “efficiency” as “Meets or nearly meets industry standards but underperforms most charities in its Cause”. But Grant and Crutchfield call Habitat a high-impact non-profit enterprise that built 275,000 homes in 90 countries to house 1m low-income individuals. Those results explain why donors support Habitat.

Looking beyond financial statements takes some work. Try calling your local community foundation. Part of the service they provide is helping donors decide where to give. Call a private foundation that supports the organisation you are considering. Large private foundations have staff who evaluate charities. If you see a foundation listed as a donor to the one you are researching, look up its contact information at foundationcenter.org and ask them why it made the grant. Consider hiring a philanthropy consultant such as Geneva Global, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, The Philanthropic Initiative, or Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors.

While non-profit research that focuses on impact is rarely available online, an interesting start-up called GiveWell.net is launching in December. Founded by two ex-hedge fund employees, GiveWell.net is committed to making all its research freely available. The board of directors includes Lucy Bernholz, a consultant to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Expert advice is valuable, but just as important is the research you do on your own. If you are considering giving to a charity, even one you have supported for a long time, give them a call and ask why they think what they do makes a difference. If they respond by telling you how important the cause is, gently steer them back to answering the question. It can be hard to measure impact, so ask what outcomes they track to determine if they are doing a good job. If other non-profits work on the same cause, ask them the same questions. The website GreatNonprofits.org is building what it describes as a “Zagat Guide”, where donors, employees and those served by charities can write reviews.

But the most important thing to realise is that some charities are far better at pursuing their mission than others. You would not buy a stock without knowing how profitable the company is, and you should not donate without knowing what kind of impact a charity is having. When you analyse those you support, the joy you get from your philanthropy will grow as your impact becomes clear.

The writer is a principal and director of tactical philanthropy at Ensemble Capital Management and author of the blog TacticalPhilanthropy.com.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, Philanthropy | Comments (1)

Financial Times Philanthropy Column

August 24, 2007 – 9:06 am

Today marks the debut of my gig as a columnist for the Financial Times. The column will appear in the Wealth at the Weekend section once a month. I’ve been given wide latitude to write about philanthropy from many perspectives. Regular readers of Tactical Philanthropy will recognize many of the themes in my first column titled “Philanthropy not just for the ultra-rich”. One of the fun aspects of writing both the column and this blog is the way I can have the two interact. So if you’re a Financial Times reader visiting the blog, leave a comment or send me an email about any questions you might have or ideas for future columns. If you’re a regular Tactical Philanthropy reader, let me know what you think of the column and which of the topics we regularly discuss here you’d like to see make it into a future column.

Bill Gates. Warren Buffett. The massive transfer of wealth between generations. Stories abound about billions of dollars being set aside for charity. Yet there is an even bigger story unfolding; the story of a growing number of everyday individuals who are waking up to the fact that they, too, can engage in philanthropy.

The fact is that philanthropy is no longer only for the ultra-rich. A good rule of thumb is that you should consider philanthropic tools such as transferring stock or using a donor advised fund if you give more than $500 a year. If you give more than $25,000 a year you can consider charitable trusts and private foundations – the same tools utilised by Gates and Buffett. 

You can read the rest of the column on the Financial Times website.

The Financial Times is published in London (you’ll note the British spelling used in my column) but is distributed internationally and has a circulation second only to the Wall Street Journal among financial newspapers.

Readers know how much I like feedback, both positive and negative. Well the editors of the Financial Times feel the same way. So if you liked my column or think my ideas are idiotic, send them an email at letters.editor@ft.com and maybe your thoughts will end up in print.

Lastly, I’d like to point out that the Financial Times has some of the best philanthropy coverage of any major daily. You can find a whole section of their website dedicated to philanthropy here.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Media, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy | Comments (6)