Charitable Gift Planning in Early America When did American gift planning begin? Written records are basic materials for historians. Unfortunately, no records of charitable giving by Native American populations before European settlement have survived, and there is little information about the…
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Pomona College Leads a Post-WWII Boom in Planned Giving
Another strong era for American gift planning began in the 1940s, as gift annuity and life income trust programs benefitted from an unparalleled economic boom. In 1944 Pomona College, located in Claremont, CA, became the first college to market life…
College Planned Giving and Bequest Programs in the 1930s
Neal Dow Becker, a New York lawyer and industrialist, led a groundbreaking bequest program at Cornell University from 1924-1934. Cornell’s program involved nearly 1,000 attorneys and trust officers who encouraged alumni to make gifts in their wills, life insurance policies,…
An Unintended New Tool: Charitable Gifts from IRAs
IRA trust accounts were created in 1974 by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). More than $9 trillion is held in IRA accounts today, owned by 61% of American households. In 2006, the Pension Protection Act enabled classic IRA…
A Landmark in Charitable Gift Planning: 50th Anniversary of 1969 Tax Reform Act
The Tax Reform Act of 1969 provided the legal framework for much of what gift planners do today. To reform abuses of loosely regulated charitable trusts and private foundations, the Act mandated many new rules. For example: For charitable remainder…
Charitable Gift Planning in the 1960s
Pioneering legal professionals such as Philip R. Converse, David Donaldson, Norman S. Fink, John Holt Myers, and Jon L. Schumacher launched their careers in charitable gift planning in the 1960s. Many of today’s national planned gift marketing and consulting firms…
1952 Conference Highlights Charitable Gift Planning
A two-day Conference on Wills, Annuities, and Special Gifts in 1952 sponsored by the National Council of Churches attracted 387 gift planners to Cincinnati, Ohio, representing local and national church groups, hospitals and retirement homes, colleges, Goodwill Industries, American Friends…
Wealth in America: its Concentration, and the Great Transfer
Research by John J. Havens and Paul G. Schervish at Boston College published in 1999 asserted there would be an immense surge of at least $41 trillion and as much as $136 trillion in wealth transfers over the next 50…
Class-Action Lawsuit Results in New Federal Protections
A class-action lawsuit filed in Texas that went to the U.S. Supreme Court threatened to assess triple damages (original gift amount plus twice that amount) against every nonprofit that followed the ACGA maximum payment rate schedule. Terry Simmons, an attorney…
Gift-PL Exploits a New Technology: E-mail
In 1993, Craig Wruck started an open email discussion site (list-serve) entitled Gift-PL at the University of Minnesota. Within a few months the number of subscribers grew to 500. In 1995 Wruck transferred Gift-PL to NCPG. Donald Kent, chair of…
