Charitable Gift Annuity Marketing Survey Findings - Resources, Policies and Patterns

After surveying over 340 organizations on how they market gift annuities, one of the most exciting things we learned was that most organizations saw an increase in gift annuity donors in the past two years. Whether credit goes to the upturn of the economy, to donors feeling more financially secure (these two facts are related, of course), or some other factor or factors, gift annuity programs are growing again after witnessing a major slump from 2008 to 2011. In this blog post, we dive further into the results from the survey and investigate some of the factors that may have contributed to the increase in the number of new donors.

2012 IAR: A New Kind of Mortality Table

Several states, including New York and Washington, have begun requiring the use of a new mortality table for determining the minimum reserves required for gift annuities issued on or after January 1, 2015. PG Calc recently added this new table, 2012 IAR, to Planned Giving Manager (PGM) and GiftWrap, so now is a good time to learn more about this new mortality table and how it differs from all the ones that have come before it.

One More “To Do” Item - Gift Annuity Annual Reporting

If your organization is registered to issue gift annuities in New York, be sure that completion of the Annual Statement form (due March 1) is on your “to do” list. Unlike many states, where the filing is based on fiscal year end, the NY deadline is the same for all organizations. If you haven’t already done so, the 2014 form is available for download on the New York state website. One notable change this year: the reserve listing, which includes information on all annuities, must be filed in PDF form by all organizations (and also in Excel form for NY-based charities), but no longer needs to be filed in hard copy.

What's the Big Deal about the Donor's Cost Basis?

The question of why charities need the donor’s cost basis for long-term appreciated stocks funding charitable gift annuities (CGAs) comes up frequently in our client support calls. If the donor doesn’t provide the information up front, do they really need to pursue it? What if the donor says he doesn’t have the cost basis information? Can the charity simply assume zero for the cost basis and call it a day? What difference does it make anyway? Why it matters PG Calc’s Planned Giving Manager prompts the user to supply the dollar amount the donor paid for the stock when it was originally acquired – or, in the case of inherited stocks, the official value of the stock on the date of death of the previous owner (AKA the “stepped-up” cost basis).* This information is relevant and necessary because charitable gift annuities are split-interest gift arrangements. In each CGA, there is a benefit for the charity (the remainder or...