A charitable wallet (Craig Fasano)
The donor-advised fund as a tool has definitely increased what we see in our clients donating to charity. It’s just made life so much easier on the charitable side. It also fosters more upfront charitable gifting, because people understand that they're setting up something that's going to benefit them for the long-term and their family.
I say to clients we could set up a vehicle that's inexpensive and easy, fund it with low basis securities, potentially avoid the capital gain on the disposition of the securities, and get you a tax deduction at fair market value.
Now you have an account that serves as your charitable wallet, and if you want to give gifts as little as $50, you can do that. In pre-donor-advised-fund days, it would be a big pain in the neck to give 5 shares to this hospital or whatever it is. With the donor-advised fund, it streamlines everything.
And there's no time frame on when that money has to come out to the end charity. So for people who are retiring, they can fund it while they're working , when they feel flushed and they feel like there’s more deduction value to do it. And then having the ability to send the checks out later on is something that they all really appreciate.
I have an older client who set up a donor-advised fund, and they were astonished at how easy it was to do online. And it really gives clients this vehicle or wallet that is something that can be useful not just today, but going forward.