Finding charitable organizations

Ruth Selby:

Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon. This is the DAFgiving360™ and Stanford PACS webinar on Finding and Vetting Organizations, Effective Philanthropy for Advisors. My name is Ruth Selby, and I'm the program and education manager at Stanford PACS. I'm so excited to be here today and welcome you to the fourth webinar in our series, Effective Philanthropy for Advisors. Today's topic is Finding and Vetting Organizations, and we're going to get started. So here's our agenda for today. We'll go over some introductions and a brief welcome. We'll go through a thought exercise with an imaginary million dollars. We'll take you through finding and vetting organizations, how to engage others using our toolkit and other resources, and then we'll close with time for Q&A. Next, I'd like to introduce Chris Altimont, senior manager of charitable giving at DAFgiving360™. Chris will give us a welcome and kick us off. Chris, over to you.

Chris Altimont:

Awesome. Thank you, Ruth. Well, hello, everyone. Thank you for being here today. I'm super excited to welcome you to our advisor webinar education series. So in partnership with the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. So as Ruth mentioned. My name is Chris Altimont. I'm a senior manager on the charitable consulting team. So really I'm a relationship manager with DAFgiving360 and I cover the South Central Territory. So in my role and in my counterparts' role across the country, so we provide charitable education tools and resources to advisors to support you and your client's philanthropic goals. So this can take many different forms, but typically involve discussing how charitable planning can be integrated into wealth management strategies you're already putting into practice with your clients, exploring various giving vehicles to help determine which one best aligns with your client's goals and with their capacity, providing guidance on tax smart giving strategies, so thinking about maybe bunching strategies, donating non-cash assets or complex assets, and also creating a strategic approach to family and legacy giving.

So I've been with DAFgiving360 for almost eight years and what my first role was at the organization, so I was processing grant recommendations from client DAF accounts to the charitable organizations. There are great tax benefits associated with putting assets into a donor advice fund, but really, it's getting those assets to those charitable organizations, that's at the heart of what we do here at DAFgiving360, and I think that's a great segue. So for those of you who may not be familiar with DAFgiving360, which I assume most of you are, so we are an independent 501(c)(3) public charity with a mission to increase charitable giving in the United States, and we're able to do that by providing a tax smart and simple giving solution to donors and financial advisors.

So in today's session, we're going to focus on finding and vetting those charitable organizations, and before we dive in, just a quick housekeeping note. I know you've heard this before, but I'll say it again. If you're eligible to gain CE credit for participating in today's webinar, just please be sure to stay with us for at least 50 minutes to qualify for those credits. And additionally, so I did want to highlight some resources available through DAFgiving360, all of which are accessible on our public website. So these tools, they're designed specifically for advisors looking to assist clients in achieving and potentially surpassing their charitable giving goals.

We have kept several key resources to support you in helping your clients integrate charitable giving into their overall wealth planning, and a standout resource is the DAFgiving360 Giving Guide, which supports donors and advisors in developing a more intentional charitable giving strategy regardless of where your clients are at in their philanthropic journey. So the Giving Guide, it's one of our most widely used resources, it's a flexible, easy-to-use tool that helps donors and advisors create that thoughtful charitable giving strategy. Understanding a donor's specific passions and goals, it's often the best place to start. So it's about helping them find their focus, what motivates their giving, what do they want to change, what change do they want to see in the world?

And so in addition to the Giving Guide, DAFgiving360 also created a companion advisor guide that assists advisors like yourself in navigating those conversations with your clients about their philanthropic journey and just kind of navigating the Giving Guide. And so from there, donors, they can explore organizations aligned with their goals. So there's tools like Candid, which was previously GuideStar, and Charity Navigator. Those are just a couple of excellent resources for evaluating the nonprofit organizations. But importantly, the Giving Guide also provides guidance on topics such as international giving and intergenerational engagement, so really helping families plan across generations and across geographies as well. So today we're joined by Vera Michalchik, director of philanthropy research and education at Stanford PACS, and Ruth Selby, program and education manager at Stanford PACS, who you've already met. And with that, I will kick it over to Vera.

Vera Michalchik:

Thank you so very much, Chris. That was actually quite inspirational and I absolutely love hearing both your background and getting the details on the tools that DAFgiving360 offers. We will talk a little bit at the end of this webinar about the toolkit that Stanford PACS offers. Lots of synergies, they're very complimentary, copacetic, all those good words, and it's just a pleasure to have been in partnership with you as we have been for quite some time. So yeah, we are Stanford PACS for the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. We've been around about 20 years and we have a mission to improve philanthropy and civil society for the purpose of social change. So we are a mission-driven organization.

We also published the Stanford Social Innovation Review, which if you haven't checked it out, I was a big fan girl of SSIR before I joined this particular organization, which is responsible for its publication, but lots and lots of good content about the world of making the world a better place, and we have international editions and it's really lovely. You've already met Ruth and I through Chris and previous mentions, but I want to just say that the group that we represent, the Effective Philanthropy Learning Initiative, is a subset within the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, but we really focus on making philanthropy better. We do research, we build tools, and we have educational programs so that donors really feel more confident in the work that they do as funders for social change.

So effective philanthropy is the term that comes up in our title and what we say, they're always changing it a little bit, but the principles of effective philanthropy are that it's thoughtful and that effective Philanthropists themselves are thoughtfully informed about the issue area they're interested in. They're clear on their goals, they know what they're shooting for, what kind of impact they want to have. They're committed to a strategy and to the nonprofits they fund. So they're not just necessarily one-offs short-term, but really, really engaged in supporting nonprofit work and seeing it through cycles of activity. They're learning-oriented. There's always something to learn about any particular nonprofit's efforts or charitable effort, and that they're ultimately respectful and build relationships of trust with their grantees.

So we're going to talk about finding and vetting organizations, but to put you in the right frame of mind, let's do a thought exercise and you're going to have some time to really think about this. Imagine for a moment that you have $1 million to donate to a new organization and the constraint here, it's an organization that you've never given to before. Just take a moment and think, "Okay, I suddenly have a million dollars. Where am I going to give it?" Single organization?

And the questions that we ask when you put yourself in that frame of mind is what factors, let's pick three, did you consider when making your decision? And importantly, let's say you're picking an outcome, you're thinking about digital technology learning, bridging the digital divide, which sounds kind of like an old topic, but for people who don't have access to technology, what three factors did you consider when deciding that that's where you wanted to give the money? And then what more would you want to know about the organization you're considering before you send off your check, or give to the DAF that you're going to fund this organization out of? Just the point here is that a depth of reflection on both what the goal is and a significant amount of information about the organizations you're considering are probably two very fundamental aspects of actually giving to achieve a particular social goal.

When we talk about finding and vetting organizations, we're talking about really considering the landscape of giving right now where most of the money that is going to organizations, most of the money that's going to almost 2 million nonprofits in this country right now comes from individuals. Almost $600 billion in philanthropic giving and almost 400 billion of that comes from individuals. So that is 66%. That's a 2024 statistics. But most donors don't... Well, let's say about half, but we tend to think it's kind of an exaggerated number. Half of donors really do research on the performance of the organizations that they're interested in giving to. And as we know, some of the criteria they use may not actually be the most helpful criteria, such as whether or not the executive staff receive adequate compensation or high compensation. There are lots and lots of factors, and we'll talk more about those factors, but what this all means for you as advisors is that there's a huge value add when you're working with clients to talk to them about what to look for in the organizations they want to give to.

So these are the questions that donors, people who are moving into charitable giving, ask typically. How do you find good organizations? What do you need to know before making a gift? How do you get the most bang for your buck and how do you get going? And this is a really big question that we often hear is people have funds they want to give and they are apprehensive about where to give. And it's kind of a big deal to try to make a decision about whether you're really doing the right things. Imagine typical conversation in an attorney's office when a client is working, say, on their last will or trust, and the template often goes... The client says, "I don't know, where should I put my philanthropic dollars?" And attorneys often will say, "Well, where'd you go to college? Do you have a faith-based affiliation?" And it ends up not being exactly as meaningful or as potent or as aligned with the goals of a donor as the charitable bequest or the decision could be.

We've talked to people who are saying, "Hey, what do you have planned for when you pass?" And they said, "Oh, yeah. My trust company is going to take care of that," and is that really all you want to do if for your legacy is just hand the decision over to someone else? And we don't think that's probably what most donors really want for their own legacy and their own decisions about where their funds go. So let's think about some of the ways in which a person can actually look for a good organization. Next slide, please.

One thing, and this is something that has worked for a lot of people just getting into the giving space and that is follow a leader. Is there somebody that you can look up to that's done a lot of the due diligence, has done a lot of the investigation, has done actually a lot of the research, maybe somebody that's a national funder or is a large private foundation who is giving to certain kinds of organizations that you could actually follow? Because they've invested the time and the money into understanding which nonprofits are doing a good job. Another approach that we see people do is decide on an issue fund, and those issues can be particular social, environmental issues. Obviously that can happen as a donor learns more, the money can go into a DAF, and then the investigation of what kind of issue funds are out there can be a follow on. And most of these issue funds are 501(c)(3), so they're eligible for funds to go to from an DAF.

Another way that we suggest people learn about where to give is to really tap their network and to invite friends, colleagues and family members to talk about where they've given. I mean, that seems sort of very obvious, but at the same time, we know that most of giving decisions really do come through the ideas that people get from their social networks. Another option is going to be to join a donor group and donor support organizations come in a lot of varieties, a lot of different shapes and sizes, from identity-based organizations, issue-based organizations, which we mentioned in issue funds, but there's almost no kind of donor group that a person couldn't identify with or find relevant to their own backgrounds and areas of interest. And then ultimately, the gold standard, I guess, or the hardest thing to do is to really do deep research on what nonprofits are in that cause area or geographic area and where one might profitably give or productively give their funds to.

We teach a course here at Stanford, it's a full quarter course, and the students actually do this. They determine an issue area they care about and they do a landscape analysis and they do it in teams and they work hard at it and it takes a lot of time, but it's something that we all know is facilitated through ratings organizations, through web searches, and certainly increasingly through the use of AI tools, which obviously aren't foolproof, but can really advance the search that one might do in a more landscape way when they're really trying to understand the issue area that they want to give to or might want to give to.

One thing that we always teach in our work is that there are different ways, different approaches to giving, that we often think of charitable giving as something that feeds the hungry or houses the housing insecure, but direct services are not obviously the only way that one can make a difference with one's dollars. Many private foundations put a lot of money into research and research is a perfectly viable and great place for someone to put their philanthropic dollars, particularly if it's a new area, an innovative area, an area that requires the development of greater knowledge to achieve a goal or to serve a cause.

A lot of organizations also use prizes and fellowships, certainly something that a smaller donor can contribute to through collective or collaborative funds. And then advocacy is... There are limits on 501(c)(3) advocacy efforts, but still there are lots of ways in which 501(c)(3) organizations can be involved in advocacy, especially when it comes to social awareness, and ultimately, to movement-building, which is an area that many people wish to give to nonprofits that do create awareness of important causes, important issue areas, important new ways of thinking about the world that can, in fact, transform hearts, minds and ultimately systems.

Not every philanthropic effort needs to be a systems change effort. There are lots of systems that work pretty well but need infusion of money to ameliorate negative consequences, and sometimes we use the example of malaria. We're not going to necessarily change the system through which the microbes infect people with malaria, but boy, giving to ameliorating nonprofits that, say, provide bed nets is really a great thing. So it's a symptom approach, and a symptom approach can also be really effective in making the difference in the world that somebody wants to make.

One thing we've noted in our work is that a lot of people do have nonprofits that they wish to give to and they've been giving to. At the same time, many, many high net worth folks also have ideas about ways they can change the world and make a difference, and so there's responsive giving, of course, "I know this charity, I know this nonprofit and I support their work because I like what they do," but there's also this idea that there can be innovations that a person may want to actually make. They may want to really create something new, and they may want to do that by creating their own entity, or giving to an entity that is just getting started that isn't one of the ones they've traditionally given to, and that can be very motivating. What we see is that that can actually move money from the sidelines into greater charitable giving.

Chris Altimont:

And I can jump in on that question as well just from the DAF perspective too, and I think we do come across those donors fairly frequently. I mean, I don't have a specific number on how many donors, but especially with the Donor Advice Fund with planned giving vehicles, oftentimes whenever your clients need the most deductions. Their highest income years is whenever they have the least capacity to really be mindful in where they want to give. So that's how the DAF and other vehicles, they allow those clients to be able to get those upfront tax deductions in the years that they need at most, but then they still don't have to be hasty in deciding which organizations they want to support. They can take the time and they can be mindful to really put the time in and do the research whenever maybe in those years they don't have the capacity to do it, they utilize the DAF. So I just wanted to give that perspective on my end. I do think we see that quite a bit where donors aren't fully decided where they want to give.

Vera Michalchik:

And to me, the structure of the DAF is such a gift in that way. It really allows for so much more flexibility and so much more deliberateness and intentionality in where charitable dollars ultimately go. Thank you, Chris.

Ruth Selby:

I do see another question. How do you advise clients who are making significant gifts to new, and thus more untested or edgy missions? And I think I may take a stab at this, but could also maybe, Chris, ask you how you advise clients in this case. But I think a lot of times at Stanford PACS, we talk about managing expectations, right? We can see people make gifts of all sizes and you think, "Is this gift going to cure cancer? Is it going to have zero impact at all?" And somewhere in the bell curve, it's something between incremental improvement and mild disappointment maybe. So really helping the client understand what the expectations are can help framing.

If you're giving to a more edgy or untested solution, we see a lot of this in climate change, sometimes folks are thinking really big in some of the climate solutions that they're funding. Maybe it's a moonshot and it's 99% chance that it won't work, but in the 1% chance that it does work, wow, incredible. So sometimes having that frame can be helpful. And Chris, I'll leave it open in case there's something else you encounter when advising clients.

Chris Altimont:

No, and it's funny that you put it that way because I think the same thing with... I mean, obviously I'm not super ingrained just on the wealth management side, but it's similar to speculative investments too, or it's like speculative donations too, or there's high risk, high reward potentially. And into the question too, just think about advising donors to narrow a focus to a specific area. I mean, I'm just thinking about in the CAP program, the Chartered Advisor and Philanthropy Program of talking about maybe not being what they call a peanut butter philanthropist where you're not spread so thin that you don't really make impact.

And that was one of the key focuses of being very defined in what you want to support, like Catherine had noted in the comments, having a very narrow focus, and that's ultimately maybe the way that you're going to have the most impact is to not just kind of sprinkle donations broadly across different causes and different organizations, but really define what specifically you want to support and maybe be a little bit more committed to that one specific cause. And even taking it down from cause to demographic to region and kind of continuing to narrow the focus as much as possible.

Vera Michalchik:

A lot of people don't realize that there are a lot of different inflection points or levers that can be pulled to have social impact approaches, and we're not even talking about impact investment in this moment, we're really just talking about charitable gifts. Okay, now the next slide. One thing that Chris gave a fantastic introduction to the tools that DAFgiving360 provides, and we have a toolkit, which I'll talk a little bit more about at the end of this, but there's a full-on due diligence rubric for you as an advisor and for your clients to use to really do the due diligence that's necessary for ensuring that the organization has at least the capacity to use the funds well. And I know that we are seeing a lot of changes in civil society and in the nonprofit space because of certain political and other social changes right now, which mean that organizations are going to be maybe consolidating, nonprofit organizations are maybe going to be consolidating and there's going to be changes in the field, and I think because of that, it's especially important to understand capacity to absorb and use funds.

Some of the key issues in a due diligence consideration are whether an organization has a sensible strategy, and for us at PACS and the Effective Philanthropy Learning Initiative, and this relates to the question about focus that we got from Catherine a bit ago, is what's their goal and what's their strategy? Does it make sense? Does it make sense from what you know as just a person in the world and using your common sense, but can you access research and sound theory that lets you know that the strategy is based on sound theory and is well-considered and also well-implemented?

Another point is are they evaluating their efforts? Do they have data to show that they have an impact, that the outcomes that they intend to achieve are being achieved? Is the story convincing? It doesn't have to just be numbers, it can also be an account where this thing was done, that thing happened, and here's the outcome, and the outcome in and of itself shows sort of a causality that you can infer. Are the leaders experienced? Are they sticking around in the organization? Are the staff stable and qualified for the job at hand? And then of course, are the financials in order? Does the organization have appropriate audits and such?

Newer, smaller organizations may not have this set of documentation that we often advise for more established organizations, and that doesn't mean that a donor shouldn't consider a more novel or just a startup of a nonprofit, but again, there's this set of ideas that I think are propagated widely in the field that you just got to understand that you've got good leadership, you've got good staff, you've got a good plan, you've got a good strategy, and you've got the wherewithal to actually execute. Those are going to really help a donor feel confident about giving in a certain area.

We are very concerned, as are many, many other donors, especially in this moment of trust-based philanthropy, that the efforts to understand whether a nonprofit is a worthy recipient of a donor's funds, that that due diligence process should not be a burden to a nonprofit organization. So much is available obviously online, and if a donor feels they want to make a direct information request of an organization, think about how that can be as much aligned with the kind of information that they are going to generate anyway so that they're not, again, putting an undue burden on an organization and treating the nonprofit with the ultimate respect, because they are really the ones doing the heavy lifting. So we always add that as a caveat.

Here are some of the points that I had made about due diligence, and I think this is just a repetition of some of the things I had said when we were looking at the toolkit page. Next slide please. We'd like to hear from you about how your relationship with your clients proceeds when they come to you, and if they come to you needing help in finding organizations. We're going to put up a poll that will allow you to speak to your colleagues, your peers, about some of these things. Interesting responses. They're definitely leaning in the not very often times in which clients come to advisors, the advisors here in this webinar for support. And I am fascinated by this. It is potential potentially great value add area, yet no advisor can be an expert in everything.

And look, do you ever do research for your clients? A couple of people do it always, but still the preponderances is not or rarely. And then about pointing people to resources. Yay. So some of you say that you have resources ready to share, and others, if you sometimes... Or you leave it up to them. We'd love you to now put into the chat what your favorite resources are. And in this era of incredible information glut and so many ratings agencies and support organizations and such, it'd be really wonderful for you to just add in the chat who you use, who you turn to, if you wouldn't mind doing that. What are your favorite go-to resources? I don't know if we're getting answers.

Ruth Selby:

We've got one in the Q&A. Someone shared Foundation Source, who's a great org. Charity Navigator, I'm seeing. The Local Community Foundation. Yeah.

Vera Michalchik:

I mean, there's obviously Candid and Better Business Bureau's supports. Giving Compass, absolutely. Going directly to 990s, the DAFgiving360 resources. Fantastic. Are any of you exploring using AI tools to match goals and interests with what you know your clients are interested in? Goals and your clients are interested in with what is out there? I think we're going to see some pretty significant innovations around finding theories of change that is goals and strategies that match with donors' intentions. I think there are already some in development that are going to be increasingly interesting and supportive. Thank you, Mary, for that. Mary Jovanovich, a friend of ours. Love it. That's fantastic. The Equitable Giving Lab Women & Girls Index. These are obviously some more particular resources, but they're exactly the ones that can get your clients to something specific that they want to give to, and there are... We'll talk a little bit more about finding those resources in a moment.

So in our remaining time, we want to just talk a little bit about what the social world is and the kinds of resources that exist, the kinds of institutional and support resources that exist because we have in our work done sort of a typology of the kinds of organizations that can support a client. So I just want to drill down a little bit more deeply into this where and how you can engage others and how can clients learn most quickly and efficiently about some of the resources that are out there for them. So the typology we created, and this is on our website, we're in the process of revising this, but that a donor can certainly look to research and data providers, and we've talked a little bit about that, which comes in different varieties, and the Women & Girls Index is probably a pretty good example of that, that Mary Jovanovich just provided.

There's also education providers like what we are doing right now. Peer networks, we mentioned that as a place people can go where they connect with others with whom they have commonalities, identity. Of course, you are all our advisors. And then there are plenty of funding intermediaries, a variety of sorts. And yeah, it's nice that you mentioned Double the Donation because some of these intermediaries, some of them are funding amplifiers where when you give, they'll give to match or to direct funds to their favorite organizations, their favorite causes. But basically we see that there are ecosystem funders where one can join others within the ecosystem system and then their ecosystem supporters.

I want to add that collaborative giving is increasingly important to a lot of donors. And when we talk about having greater impact or more significant impact, a lot of collectives, collaboratives are really going to be places where a client may want to go and they certainly can go there from a DAF. They can start with a DAF, and then as long as the organization, the collaborative organization is a 501(c)(3), of course the money can readily go there. So what's the spectrum of donor collaboration? Certainly at the least collaborative and is learning with others, just really finding others who are like-minded or using exemplars from the world of philanthropic giving where one can learn about the causes and issue areas one cares about, and of course the nonprofits that carry out that work, but ultimately, coordinating and even pooling funds is a strong and constrained collaborative mood, because you're putting money into a space where the decisions are not being made by you as a donor alone.

Another thing that a donor may want to think about is... And this gets kind of heavy lift, but we see it with a lot of our executive education participants and a lot of the people that we talk to about changes in the field and where their hearts and minds are going, and that is the movement towards more participatory grant-making, which aligns somewhat with the trust-based philanthropy movement and some of the efforts to really understand communities that the donations may be and should be serving.

And so at the sort of less involved side of things is are listening tours. Donors asking community members nonprofit staff about their experiences with a particular issue. Somebody may want to offer a seat at the table for their giving efforts, however they're structured, and that might involve inviting a teenage girl, for example, to sit on at the table in a girl's education giving circle. And then there may be something where there's really an active partnership between a foundation and the community which it funds. And you'll see this arising in the world of innovative funding strategies or more progressive funding strategies.

Now we get to what Stanford PACS offers by way of tools and resources, and then we'll have, I think, a good amount of time for Q&A. We have talked a little bit about our toolkit and the due diligence page that you saw earlier comes from the toolkit per se. We have a little bit more of an in-depth guide that is a little less hands-on, more of a textbook, but it's also very friendly and it's got plenty of graphics that talks more about strategy and the components of strategic philanthropy and what it means to lay out goals and theories of change and to really think about a focused way of giving the anti-peanut butter approach to harken back to what Chris had said. We also have an interactive self-paced online learning module that covers a lot of the same content if you or any of your clients are interested in that.

And then to talk a little bit more about the toolkit, which is available online and it's also available for purchase, although we're increasingly moving to the online version, it's really designed as a practical resource, and what we really encourage people to do is white labeling it, rebranding it, reprinting it if they want. And some advisors have done that, some advisors and advisory organizations have done that. But it really walks people through the conversations, the values development and focus that one would want to do to really determine where they want to give and then creating ultimately a giving plan.

Yeah, it's very interactive. We are building this webinar series around the toolkit and modules within the toolkit. I wanted to just add that we also have on our website a resource that's specifically for advisors in the Advisor's Corner. So I encourage you to just Google Stanford EPLI Advisor's Corner and you'll get right there. But just highlight that as an additional resource and one that has PowerPoints and handouts and videos and infographics and some case studies that may be of interest to you. And then turn it over to Chris and then we'll talk about our next webinar session after we give Chris another moment, and then we'll have time for Q&A.

Chris Altimont:

Yeah, of course, and definitely will just be moment. Just a couple of quick things we want to touch on. Just again, thank you all for joining us today. I hope this session gave you practical insights and tools that you can bring to your client conversations and also to say thank you to both of you and to Stanford PACS for the great content. As mentioned, so we have several resources available to you, the Stanford's advisor toolkit, as well DAFgiving360 Giving Guide with that companion advisor guide. And if you have any follow-up questions at all, you can follow up with your local charitable consultant. I'm the charitable consultant in the South Central, but we have charitable consultants spread across the country. And if you've never had a chance to interact with DAFgiving360 before, you can also connect with our business development team, that can be a great resource to you. And with that, I'll kick it back over to Ruth and Vera to close this out.

Vera Michalchik:

Yeah, and we had a question about the Advisor's Corner and finding that. Stanford EPLI, you'll get lots of resources and you can look up advisor and you'll get right to it. So finally, sort of promised at this a little too early that we will have another session that's going to focus on giving vehicles, and our wonderful colleague, Micah McElroy, who is an expert in thinking about the world of special instruments and special tools, and he's written about LLCs and alternative giving vehicles, but he really will guide us through some of the history of DAFs, including DAFs, and then talk about how one actually gives the money. And with that, shall we have our Q&A session now and then we can end with a poll? Let's start with Q&A first and then do the poll in a minute because it's probably going to be more helpful for people to talk about what they want to ask based on what we've discussed so far. Questions?

Chris Altimont:

I can go back to hearing about ultra-high net worth clients keeping control of investments. [inaudible 00:42:05] DAFgiving360. I know this is kind of separate from the conversation today, but just touching on... So we wouldn't have the individual clients retain control of the investments. How that would work is they would be hiring their investment advisor, so they'd be hiring yourself to manage those assets. I mean, obviously you can coordinate with the client to look what that or see what that portfolio would look like, but then you're no longer bound to the 15 investment pool. So if they want to invest in anything specific, then you'd have that ability to just purchase publicly traded securities on the Schwab platform and hold those within the DAF account. I don't know if that's kind of what that question was in regards to, if it was actually having the end client retain control of the investments, and that's not something that we allow just since they've irrevocably gifted those assets to the donor-advised fund.

Ruth Selby:

Great. There was another question a few minutes ago about where could we verify the grading and effectiveness of charitable organizations. I think a lot of the organizations that people have shared, GuideStar, Charity Navigator, but I wonder, Vera, it almost seems like a meta, how do you verify those rankings? Is that the question? I wonder how do we grade the graders?

Vera Michalchik:

Yeah, and there's not a lot offered in the graders about really what the effectiveness is, what the outcomes are. I mean, there's certainly a lot about the organizations and how the organizations manage their funds, but to really know what their goals and strategies are, it takes a little more digging, and I do think that's where we're going to see some breakthroughs with AI and being able to, again, as I mentioned, understand specifically what a goal of a particular nonprofit is and then what their theory of change, what their strategy is and how along the way they've succeeded in reaching certain milestones and implementation. It's not an obvious thing and it's not an easy thing, and for some donors that means talking with potential grantees and spending some time with them.

These are complicated questions ultimately, but there are simpler, shorter answers and then there are more elaborated answers. And when we went to how do you source and find and vet organizations, sometimes what you're going to do for the easiest and lowest-hanging fruit is to look at who others have funded. That is who have some of the larger foundations or community foundations or issue area collaboratives or collectives ended up funding because they've been able to put the time and effort into really vetting those organizations, understanding what their strategy is and how well it's working. We're almost at time. We've put in our 50 minutes. Chris, I want to just offer you as representative of DAFgiving360 an opportunity to say anything final that you might want to say and then we'll go to our final poll.

Chris Altimont:

Yeah, of course. Well, just first and foremost, I just appreciate everyone joining this conversation. I know that vetting charitable organizations and selecting charitable organizations may seem out of the ordinary of what you're doing as an investment advisor, but at the same time... And I know with that poll, I know that a lot of you aren't necessarily approached by your clients for that, but I also think that it may be because that they don't know that you could be a resource for them in that area, so they just don't even know to ask in the first place. And that's why it's so important to have these conversations with your clients about what goals they want to have, what they want achieve, and just start to open up those conversations, because so often I feel like clients, they're very set in the way that they've given. They just make annual gifts and it's very ordinary to them, and they wouldn't even think about involving their advisor in those conversations.

But just making sure to always engage your clients because that's a great way to deepen relationships with your clients, is to talk about their charitable giving, talk about their passions, their values. And I know that we look at that as a great way to not just deepen relationships with that specific client, but then extended family members as well. So thinking about maybe there's a client that one spouse is much more financially literate than the other one. So that's who you're typically having those conversations with, but then once you start talking about charitable giving, that kind of bridges that gap to those other family members because everyone can talk about their values, everyone can talk about what they're passionate about. So obviously, it does good in the world to give to charity, but it's also a great tool for advisors to deepen relationships and ultimately, retain assets moving forward, especially if we think about moving into the next generation as well. So just starting to develop those relationships early and just charitable giving can be such a valuable resource to you in that perspective as well.

Vera Michalchik:

Can I say one more thing that is a little bit of a hot take, but it actually really is fun to try to understand what's happening in the non-profit world, what kinds of goals various organizations are trying to achieve and how they're trying to do it. It really is an exciting world, and if you suspect that a client has an interest in a particular area or might have an interest in a particular area, or you have an interest in a particular area and want to know who's out there doing something about that social problem or that environmental problem, go for it. Learn about it and feel a little more confident in what you have to offer because an exciting world, the world of people trying to make a difference through their non-profit efforts. So just add that.

Ruth Selby:

Vera, thank you again for a really engaging hour. Chris, thank you. Always great to hear from practitioners, people who are doing this work, advising people on what to do with their money. I'll end the poll now and it's just the top of the hour, so thank you all for attending. We'll see you in September for the fifth webinar in this series, and thank you again. We'll close. Thanks so much. Bye.

Vera Michalchik:

Yeah, bye-bye.

Chris Altimont:

Thanks. Bye-bye.

DAFgiving360™ is the name used for the combined programs and services of Donor Advised Charitable Giving, Inc., an independent nonprofit organization which has entered into service agreements with certain subsidiaries of The Charles Schwab Corporation. DAFgiving360 is a tax-exempt public charity as described in Sections 501(c)(3), 509(a)(1), and 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) of the Internal Revenue Code. 1025-L5LA