 Hello. Thank you for joining us today. We are two of us here from our DAV Personal Philanthropy Programs team. I'm Judy Lissuini and I'm based out of our national headquarters in Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky. I've been with DAV for 25 years. It's been such an honor and I'm also going to introduce Robbie Givergees here who is one of our six regional directors based out of their homes around the country and they are also serving our supporters in any way they can and all the ways we'll be talking about today. So with that Robbie will say a few words. Thanks Judy. Well hello everyone. My name is Robbie. As Judy had mentioned I'm the Central Regional Director as part of our Personal Philanthropy Programs. I'm located right outside of Chicago, Illinois and have been with DAV now for a little over a year and so it's great to be with you virtually. It's been a real joy of mine to be able to work on behalf of our veterans who have served our country. So thank you for your service and thank you for being here with us today. We look forward to having a great conversation. Okay well with that I'll give an overview of what we'll cover. We'll be talking about ways to give that do not cost anything now during your lifetime. We also have gifts that would enable people to receive a fixed income for as long as they live plus tax advantages. We'll talk about how to name DAV in your will. It's very simple and also we can cover easy 15-minute estate gifts that simply involve a update to a beneficiary form. Separately we have a new program that enables our members and supporters to create a free will online. Very easy. We'll tell you about that and then we'll end up talking about ways that you may not think about giving that are really smart tax-wise, make a big difference to DAV. I'd say on your taxes really. And just good things to know about you can also tell your members and friends about them too. So all right with that we'll move on to the next slide. So here we're just talking making sure people know that we're friendly people who just love to hear from you. That's the whole point for you to get to know us but we'd love to talk to you any of your members and friends. We listen to everybody's life stories and learn why they care. Often we're talking even to children of veterans who know how much we've done for their parents and are grateful and want to give it back in any way. So we just work with people, help them make the right gift for them and try to educate too about new ways of giving that you'll hear about today. All right well with that Robbie will handle the next two slides. Thanks Judy and just so we have a better review of our slides Judy and I are going to come off camera here so we can get kind of the best view of our presentation. Well our personal philanthropy program team covers the entire country along with Judy and I we have a regional director that covers multiple states for each part of the country that we're in and as you can see we are broken up into regions and listed here are my colleagues across the United States that can help with questions about estate giving or current giving or really anything related to DAV philanthropy and there'll be a great point of contact for you locally. As you can see if you take a look at the corresponding map here and you can find the regional director in your area based on the corresponding color. For example in the dark blue up in the northeast states from Maine down to Virginia we have our northeast regional director Jason Ballant and just below that in the light blue states from North Carolina down to Florida you'll you'll find our southeast regional director Teresa Long-Pascal and I encourage you to go back and look at where the and find where the other regional directors are in your area and please do be in touch with them. I think the regional directors would be really happy to hear from you and we are more than happy to answer any questions or to be of any resource to you here and so I'm going to go hand it over again to Judy as we continue. Okay well just to give you a context of who we are you'll recognize our team's work by way of these sample DAV magazine articles that run in every DAV magazine. We love the stories about real people who are making guests like what we'll tell you about and we love to point out how much we want to thank and honor these individuals for their wonderful guests which are making all the difference in what we can do for disabled veterans now and in the future. So with our next slide our simple message is just please consider naming DAV as a beneficiary of your will or trust a financial or investment account an insurance policy or retirement account and there's our legal name and address plus it's really helpful and best if people would include our tax ID number and then let us know so that we can thank you during your lifetime. With our next slide with the state giving and who we prioritize estate gifts cost nothing during anyone's lifetime that just makes such a difference in the future. Most people underestimate what assets they do have. People think they don't have an estate but they really do by the time they start to think about oh they have insurance and you know an investment account they have were Jones or their house so and I love to say that nearly everyone can think about an estate gift large or small not everyone can think about making a large gift during their lifetime but gifts through your state plans are just making an amazing difference in our work so but we always focus on longtime donors so many of them might have been making 10 to 20 dollar gifts over their lifetime but then they do something amazing for us through their wills or other state plans and then we never want to overlook women because so often they're the ones who carry out those charitable intentions for the couple now they might outlive their spouse so we're all about each of these things we're mentioning now today but then next slide just to give you an idea with our bequest income increasing over time it's been just an amazing thing to see this growth so I started at DAB in 1995 and we were just beginning a plan giving program that year and we started to do letters to market bequest dollar members and supporters that they could do this then we started doing those ads in the DAB magazine so over the years it was incremental you know going up one to two thousand a year but then starting around 2015 we started to see years where we were receiving bequest income in the low 20 million range 2019 we shot up to 30 million dollars it was by far our biggest year by several years by several million dollars but it is another point of pride I learned recently that our bequest income is far and above what the American Legion and the VFW typically receive each year in bequests both organizations have more members than DAB at the American Legion typically receives less than a million each year in bequests and the VFW might receive about three to four million each year but we have focused on plan giving for the past 25 years marketing bequests another estate guess and it shows so with our next slide this shows our average bequest giving for the last three years it averaged in the low to mid 20s those three years so our net revenue as represented by bequest here as you can see is almost half so what we can spend from what people give us that's our net revenue the quest income is approaching half of our overall revenue so it's just so important to us and we're grateful and the quest giving is always the most low cost way of raising money and so that's all the more reason you see it representing a very large chunk of what we can actually spend to help veterans so all right and then uh Robbie what that's the next slide yes I wanted to share about some giving USA statistics giving USA is a foundation that publishes data and trends about charitable giving within the United States and every year they produce an annual report on philanthropy in the US and in their most recent publication they reported that Americans gave over $449 billion in 2019 to charitable institutions a really incredible giving and what's really interesting to note is that the majority of charitable giving comes from individuals as this graph notes nationwide gifts from individuals account for 69 percent over 300 billion dollars in giving with another 10 percent of that coming from individuals through their big quest so this conversation is being had all over and it is really a way for people to give and leave a really lasting legacy to the organizations that they care about you'll also see that 17 percent of the giving comes from foundations so which also includes family foundation so really it's accounting for even more individual support what's interesting also is that five percent comes from corporations whereas you know you think of these kind of large multinational corporations that are probably able to give quite a bit more but really the astounding and really kind of encouraging thing to see is that individuals are the ones that are coming in and stepping in and really giving significantly to the charities that they care about and so Judy's going to talk next about someone that cared really deeply about DAV and decided to help leave a legacy in their own way. All right well I was working at DAV at this time we learned in 2007 that we were soon to receive our largest bequest of all time still our largest bequest of all time Doris and Hector D. Stefano had created a charitable remainder trust way back in 1992 to benefit eight organizations including the DAV charitable service trust so that gave them an income for as long as she lived then he outlived her the income continued to him and after he passed away eight charities including DAV received 31 million dollars each so it can be really transformational for charities to receive gifts of this size it's made a big difference and then also we want to emphasize that our typical supporter is giving the quest of five ten fifty million oh sorry fifty thousand at a time oh gosh this is very typical multi-million dollar the quest but it goes to show that if you're out there marketing an amazing number of gifts can come in that are making just a great difference so all right and then the next slide gets back to showing you what our sample articles looked like here are two from the last year or two including one that was this year Donald Hock just a very ordinary guy who actually lives in Cincinnati but we never knew him and he named several organizations and his estate plan same thing you know wonderful gifts we've just love to tell their stories and portray that these gifts are coming from you know people next door doing amazing things so after people learn about our work through those DB magazines and other marketing the next slide shows the estate giving folder that we send and it also talks about other ways to give like what we're talking about today and the back of it has several pages of organizational material for people to make note of you know if they have a burial plot somewhere safety deposit box any financial account information just great information to help get you organized before seeing an attorney and helpful pages to leave for your executor or family member who's managing things next slide shows information about how we extend appreciation to our estate gift donors during their lifetime we honor people through the guardian society that's our legacy society it kind of captures that these supporters are guardians of our strong future mark for just sends a special thank you letter along with a certificate of appreciation a special lapel pen and a window decal through the guardian society we can also help pay tribute to a loved one living or deceased as we have done here with Mary Smith whose veteran husband had already passed away her certificate indicates that her gift is a memory of her husband William Smith again we always want to thank people during their lifetimes for gifts that will benefit from later we realize that for some people their plans may change over time or they may need all that they have to support themselves in their later years but we still want to be sure we thank and honor people now while they're still with us for their wonderful intentions okay and then Robbie will handle the next two slides yes so so there are a number of different ways to include dv in your will or your trust including leaving a specific percentage of your estate for example you can decide to leave 10 percent of the value of your estate to dv and a percentage designation is often the best format for a charitable bequest because it allows a charity to benefit from any estate growth during a donor's lifetime there's also of course the ability to set aside the specific dollar amount say $10,000 or even certain properties such as a home and art collection or something else this is the most kind of popular form of charitable bequest but can sometimes have drawbacks because for example if the value of an estate or of a home decreases significantly or property depreciates in value the the gift doesn't have as much impact as as as other times there are other other options including a contingency bequest which is a gift that takes effect only if a primary beneficiary or beneficiaries of the bequest pre-decease the donor finally there's also the remainder beneficiary which is a gift or of a portion of the remainder of the donor's assets after all the bequests have been made as well as debts and taxes have been paid and you know all that being said from the charity and donor standpoint now it's often better to name beneficiaries using percentages as gift values to stay true to bequest intentions over time because again the value of an estate can fluctuate for example with inflation or a number of other factors so our next slide talks a little bit about what the bequest language actually looks like and we often give this information to donors who are considering including DAV in their estate plan and this is some language we often provide it's very simple accommodates for the bequest that we talked about whether it's a certain dollar amount whether it's a specific property or even a certain percentage of the estate we recommend that this language for sure be shared with your attorney as they talk with you and draft your bequest provisions and a couple notable things that we do include in here are our address as well as our tax ID number which really kind of specifies who we are as an organization and so next as Judy's going to talk about how we some new programs that can help you develop a bequest or trust. Okay freewill.com backslash DAB here this gives you an idea of what it looks like if you actually do go online but as the headline indicates it's a freeway and a new way for our members and other supporters to create a free will just to make sure they have some sort of final plan in place so many people do not. Anyone can go to this website and create a simple will in about 20 minutes using this really simple online tool but as a word of caution those people should also see an attorney who ensure all of their assets are carefully noted and planned and many people would be well served to consider a trust in addition to a will but we always like to say that a free will is positively better than no will at all. This is just a new opportunity we can tell our members and supporters about and by using this new online tool it can also help you organize your thoughts and plans before seeing an attorney. Okay and next slide. I indicated earlier that we talked about the very simple ways to include DAB in your state plans that don't involve updating your will so so many assets fall outside of the will because they're governed by the beneficiary designations that you make so examples of that are retirement plans listed here you know your 401k while you're still working 403b's and after you retire those then convert to an individual retirement account your investment or financial accounts I mentioned Edward Jones all the ways people might have their assets invested banking and checking accounts and life insurance policy so those are normally governed and passed down by way of beneficiary designations and those supersede or trump what might be stated in the will so it's very important to keep those up to date and those designations can be made in percentage increments so you know 10% to one charity and another you know 25% for each child whatever you might want to do but it's always good to know that existence just so simple and very fast so all right then with the next slide the reason we emphasize all these ways that assets pass is that all in all you know people are moving towards trust to some degree that's part of what's happening here but this slide captures that wills alone are not very common not as common at least as what they used to be and there's many reasons for that including you can now pass down real estate to heirs in 18 states using a simple transfer on death feed increasingly those are popular and catching on additional states are allowing it and then so many people have mutual funds and IRA accounts those were not common didn't exist really until recent decades and so those are as our assets governed by those beneficiary designations and all in all you know the majority of people's wealth these days are in assets like those so there is a not being all that much left to place in the will so we try to make sure people know about all these other easy ways to give and and all in all you know the wills are important but not to be all end all anymore like people used to think okay next slide all right so for anybody who is thinking about being charitable can be people who don't have children obviously they're obvious but anybody can think about naming a charity in their will or or these other possibilities retirement assets if you're thinking about doing anything for a charity like DAB retirement assets if they're left to a non-spouse heir if they're left to children for example they're heavily taxed whereas a tax exempt charity like DAB would benefit from the entire retirement asset at the end so if you are thinking about being charitable consider an estate gift for a charity from retirement assets first and foremost and then leave other assets to other family members just something to think about and always consult with a financial or tax advisor for your attorney okay and Robbie will handle the next few slides yep well we've just talked about giving through retirement assets but now we're going to take a look at other ways you can make a significant plan gift to DAV now the first type of a gift that we're going to talk about is a charitable gift annuity and similar to a big quest this is a gift that would benefit DAV after your lifetime but what's interesting about this is that it would also be able to provide fixed payments to you during your lifetime a charitable gift annuity or CGA as a short form is can be established with a minimum of ten thousand dollars and you have to be at least 60 years of age to participate at least a DAV it's important to note that these are our minimums and other charities may have different minimum ages and funding amounts but gift annuities can be funded with cash stock or mutual funds and can be set up for one or two annuitants typically for a person and their spouse and just to give you a quick look at how CGA's work a gift annuity typically donor signs an annuity agreement with the charity and they initially make a lump sum donation whether it's cash or stock and the donor receives an immediate charitable tax deduction for that gift that donation is then invested with the charitable gift annuity and and the donor receives payments on a fixed schedule for the remainder of their life or their spouse's life as well if it's a two-life annuity and these payments can come quarterly they can come annually and even monthly and finally at the end of the donor's life the charity the charity receives the balance of those invested funds so it's an incredible gift that is offering a kind of fixed payments throughout the life of the donor the terms and rates of a charitable gift annuity kind of vary and based on a number of factors primarily on age as you can see in this chart someone who is at the age of 65 would receive an annual rate of 4.2 and these rates are based on yearly published rates by the council on gift annuities and based on a $10,000 gift annuity the 60 you can see that the 65-year-old donor would receive payments of $420 a year and again those can come quarterly those can come annually and with a significant amount of that payment being tax-free with an immediate charitable deduction of $3,155 and if you contrast that to someone who is of 85 years of age they would receive a rate of 7.6 percent and would have proportionately higher payments and a higher charitable deduction an immediate charitable deduction as well and any of our regional staff can talk to you about these rates and do kind of a personal calculation for you so please feel free to reach out to any of the regional directors or to Judy as well another great way to give is through gifts of stock or mutual funds and typically to gift through them stock has to be owned or mutual funds has to be owned for at least a year but it's a great way to make a tax-wise gift to DAV again because of a charity's non-profit status a gift of stock can be received in its full value and the donor is able to avoid capital gains and make a significantly larger gift rather than having a donor sell their stock and and have to pay taxes on those capital gains it's important to note that that stocks and mutual funds do need to be transferred directly to the charity so you can't sell your stock and then give the proceeds otherwise you won't get the tax benefits there and we do have information on how to do that efficiently so we can give you stock gift instructions so again feel free to reach out to us but really it's a win-win for the donor and DAV because DAV gets an incredible charitable gift and the donor is able to give sometimes even more than they would able to do with a regular cash gift finally a charitable a qualified charitable distribution is another excellent option to make a significant gift to DAV donors are able to transfer up to 100,000 dollars a year to a charity directly from their IRA and similar to the stock gifts the charity would not have to pay any taxes on this transfer because of their non-profit status and this is a particularly good option for those donors who can take who can start taking distributions from their IRA at 70 and a half and then are required to take a minimum distribution at 72 and older and a making gift through their IRA would actually help avoid an increaseable taxable income and make a generous charitable gift at the same time similar to stocks these gifts do need to be made or transferred directly from the IRA to a qualified charity rather than having a distribution check made out to you and then giving it to the charity so be sure to talk to your tax advisor about that but we also have detailed instructions how you could do this and we'd be happy to talk with you and and how to make that transfer finally an important thing to note in in 2020 due to the CARES Act required minimum distributions will be waived so just something to keep in mind as you're considering making a QCD well I'm going to hand it over to Judy for some final thoughts here okay well the information with this within this presentation is just to get you thinking but again we always welcome your calls and emails any questions you might have we would love to talk to you about any of the points that we've touched on today and then our next slide tells how to reach myself and Robbie there's my contact information I'm the primary contact for estate giving and gift annuities but our regional people are definitely able to help there too and there's our toll-free number you'll see that in the DAB magazine and our email address gift planning at DAB.org and we have a website with many helpful related articles that you can read through so just go to DAB.giftplans.org to learn more and you can actually run your own charitable gift annuity illustrations there as well if you would like to play around with that tool okay so by the way I think we're going to go back to our web cameras well I again thank you for being with us today I wanted to offer again just our contact information and please feel free to reach out to Judy or I or really any of the other regional directors we'd be happy to be in touch and talk more with you usually we have some time with you if you were live to be able to ask questions and interact with you but at least we want to make ourselves available to you if you do have any questions and so behalf of you know my colleagues and Judy thank you again for your service to our country we recognize that you support your fellow veterans and their families in many different ways including through your generous support as well as your membership with DAV and for that we are deeply grateful and we look forward to more opportunities to partner and serve alongside you. Yeah well thank you again for being with us and just call it any time we love to hear from you that's what we do all right bye bye. Thanks everyone.