You Need To Be Vocal About KETRA
Are you telling your board and major donors?

MPGA Introduces Forensic Planned Giving^SM
A tongue-in-cheek look at serious work we do for clients

Against The Grain
Cultivating the "allied professionals"

Consulting News
Taking advantage of KETRA in a $5,000,000 way

Your Feedback
I’m interested in your opinion

“The Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act of 2005 creates valuable tax incentives . . .”

The Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act of 2005 creates valuable tax incentives for making a gift to ANY non-profit before January 1, 2006.

If you have major donors who are "on the fence" about whether to give this year, or how much to give, talk to them about the inducements in this Act.

Also look at donors who have a multi-year pledge. They may want to accelerate their payments to take advantage of this year’s higher deductibility limits.

You might consider a presentation at your fourth quarter board meeting, an article in your campaign newsletter, or an e-mail blast to major donors and other insiders.

This is the article I e-mailed our readers about in late September, within a week of President Bush signing the Act into law. See Consulting News for an example of how we took advantage of KETRA for the benefit of one client and their donor.

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“[O]ur detectives uncover what the gift is and what it means to our client . . .”

We search for the facts, just the facts ma’am, to get to the bottom of old planned gifts.

Follow the course of a planned gift investigation as our detectives uncover what the gift is and what it means to our client, adding considerable value for the client after just one day on the case.

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“How many people do you meet who say "I don’t know where to give."”

I see a lot of non-profits that devote a fair amount of their limited Planned Giving resources to cultivating the "allied professionals." These are people such as estate planning attorneys, accountants, financial planners and insurance brokers, whose work is related to, or allied with, Planned Giving.

Non-profits will acquaint these people with their programs and mission. They will mail to them, meet them, even sponsor breakfasts and lunches for large groups of them. All with an eye toward informing them about the important work the organization does and its value to the community.

The conventional wisdom holds that these professions will then steer clients to your organization. That while meeting with clients who don’t know where to place their charitable gifts, the allied professionals will recommend your organization, thus acting as a marketing ally for your program and generating gifts of bequests, trusts, gift annuities, life insurance and beneficiary designations.

That seems very unlikely to me for one reason: people know where they want to place their planned gifts by the time they meet their professional advisors. They want to make a planned gift (though they won’t call it that) to the institutions and missions they already have been supporting; those which they already have affinity for. By the time they are facing comprehensive financial and estate planning, and are at a stage in life where they are considering the ultimate disposition of what they’ve spent a lifetime accumulating and protecting, people already know where they want to give. They need help understanding how to give, and their advisors play an invaluable role in that respect.

How many people do you meet who say "I don’t know where to give." Those who do say that, feel they have so many choices they don’t know where to start. What they’re really saying is "I don’t know who to turn down." The last thing they need is more alternatives. And in our information age, the few who are looking for a place to give have many avenues of research.

The better use of your limited time and money is to acquire planned gifts by cultivating and soliciting your consistent donors who are 55 and older. If you don’t know ages, sweep your entire file with a strategic mailing or survey designed to elicit the information you need. (Sweep the file in segments if your budget doesn’t permit a single large mailing.) Also look to your board and your major donors. Start including Planned Giving check offs in your annual appeal reply devices and P.S.s in other mail pieces. Are you doing consistent direct mail to market bequests (by far the most popular planned gift)? Does your website encourage planned gifts? Have you considered the appropriateness of an estate planning and charitable giving seminar for your constituency?

In other words, do you cultivate those who are already close to your organization? They represent your best prospects for a planned gift.

A final few questions: do you think yours is the only organization hosting breakfast for the allied professionals in your community? Why would your message and literature rise above any other organization’s when the attorney or accountant meets their rare client who doesn’t know where to give?

The better use of your scarce resources is to control your message and deliver it to those who love your work.

The allied professionals can enjoy breakfast at their local diner.

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• Putting KETRA to work for a client
  Last year, we closed a $25,000,000 gift for Baruch College that included a $5,000,000 Charitable Lead Trust, to be funded this year. It hadn’t yet been funded when KETRA was enacted last month. We demonstrated to the donor and his CPA the enormous tax advantages KETRA offered for an outright gift of cash. Everyone agreed to substitute a $5,000,000 cash gift for the lead trust. So, instead of receiving the money through a trust that would have paid its value over 10 years, Baruch received an outright gift for the same amount just last week.


• Welcome newcomers
  I’ve been busy speaking, at The Foundation Center’s national conference in Atlanta and the Support Center for Non-profit Management in New York City. A special welcome to you if I met you at one of those seminars.


• Visit our website
  At the Martignetti Planned Giving Advisors website you will find a full list of clients, consultants’ bios, an archive of The Martignetti Report and recent company news.


• Please forward this
  If you know someone with an interest in Planned Giving or general fundraising, please forward The Martignetti Report to them. Go to the bottom of the page to add yourself to our distribution list.

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I am always interested in your opinion of The Martignetti Report. You can send me a message from here with your comments. Or, you can always reach me through the company website

Best regards,

Tony Martignetti, Esq.
Managing Director
Martignetti Planned Giving Advisors

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