Retirees: Take Advantage of Donor Advised Funds for Tax-Advantaged Giving!
Donor Advised Funds.
We often find folks unaware of the tools available to make giving even more accessible and enjoyable.
In this video, we will show you the advantages of donor advised funds, and how to start making gifts to make an impact with your wealth.
Donor Advised Funds
Click here to watch
Full transcript:
SPEAKERS
Anthony Saffer:
Hey there, it’s Anthony and Alex with One Degree Advisors, and we help you gain confidence in your retirement. So Alex, a lot of people are just not aware of what donor advised funds are, they often think that they’re for the ultra rich or mega donors.
Alex Okugawa:
Yeah, and that’s simply not true. I mean, donor advised funds are really a simple way for you to give to the causes that are most important to you with some added advantages. But before we get into the advantages, let’s just first show folks how easy this really can be.
Anthony Saffer:
Yeah, there are really just three essential steps for setting up donor advised funds. Number one is choosing your institution and opening an account.
Alex Okugawa:
There are a lot of institutions out there where you can open up your donor-advised fund, two of our favorites are Schwab Charitable and the National Christian Foundation. Each of them have pros and cons. And so we recommend folks check out each of those just to see which would best suit their needs.
Anthony Saffer:
Yeah, they’re also a neighborhood Foundations, our friends at Rancho Santa Fe Foundation, can provide additional benefits there, they’re very local. Step number two is making a contribution.
Alex Okugawa:
Now, once your account is open, you simply make a contribution to the account. The key here is that by adding money into the account, that act in and of itself is a charitable contribution, it is irrevocable, this is no different than if you make a gift to your local church. It’s not like you make your gift and then you go, “Actually, I need that money back.” When you made that gift, that was the gift, and it is irrevocable. So again, once you make a contribution into your donor advised fund, that’s the gift, it’s irrevocable.
Anthony Saffer:
So, and then step number three is distributing, and that’s where it gets to the actual giving.
Alex Okugawa:
So now that your account is open, and now that you’ve put money inside of the account, now comes the fun part, and you get to distribute that money to the qualified charity of your choice.
Anthony Saffer:
Setting it up is pretty straightforward. Let’s talk about the advantages of a retiree using a donor-advised fund. Number one is that it actually simplifies record keeping.
Alex Okugawa:
The act of making a contribution to your donor-advised fund is a gift in itself. So, once the money is inside the donor-advised fund, you can give it wherever you want. You could literally give money to like 100 different charities, and make 100 different gifts. And at the end of the year, you’d only have one gift receipt. This is huge for retirees that want to keep things simple and don’t want to have to keep track of all these different charities and organizations that send them all the gift receipts. They then have to tally it up with their tax advisor, going through it all. So, it just keeps it really simple, because again, you get one gift receipt.
Anthony Saffer:
Yeah, and number two, and I’ve done this with my family, is get kids involved, get the family involved.
Alex Okugawa:
Once the money is inside the account, then you can start to have conversations with your family, maybe your children or your grandchildren, about why giving is so important to you and the causes that are so important to you. So, we see clients do this a lot where they’ll put money inside their donor-advised fund.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
The One Degree Blog
Not signed up yet? Get weekly financial insights right to your inbox.
Subscribers also gain access to our private monthly client memo.
This does not constitute an investment recommendation. Investing involves risk. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Consult your financial advisor for what is appropriate for you. Disclosures: https://onedegreeadvisors.com/solutions/#disclosures
One Degree
We help families cut through the noise to make confident financial decisions.