Benevon Weblog

The Top Five Benefits of a Coach

Many groups don't realize how important coaching is to the implementation of the Raising More Money Model. In this new podcast by Terry Axelrod, Raising More Money founder and CEO, learn about five of the ways our coaches will motivate and inspire you to achieve sustainable funding.

A Political Analogy

In the September 2006 issue of Worth Magazine, the editor, Dwight Cass, comments in "The Art of the Possible" that "most political novices who finance their own campaigns do, indeed, fail." Two-thirds of self-funders, in fact, lose their elections.

One reason posited for this was the notion that while American voters aspire to wealth, they are susceptible to "primitive caricatures of the wealthy" casting these rich politicians as "out-of-touch dilettante dabblers." Perhaps.

More likely, self-funding misses the importance of constant external fundraising and support building. Getting elected requires that bridges are built to constituencies that will provide enduring support, a point clearly overlooked by the losing politicians. By ignoring fundraising, one misses the huge benefit of giving people the opportunity to support and join something larger than themselves but that also represents them and their interests.

Fundraising isn't a necessary evil of nonprofit work. It is what allows a nonprofit (or a politician for that matter) to tell its essential story and attract lifelong supporters and sustainable funding. The funding part is just a function of "nudging the inevitable"—as we like to say—once you have developed your lifelong supporters.

Rolling over for the IRA Charitable Rollover

(Excerpted in part from the Independent Sector Web site):

On August 17, 2006, President Bush signed into law the recently passed pension reform bill H.R. 4 that includes a package of charitable giving incentives and safeguard measures.

"While the bill does not include all of the desired charitable incentives such as the non-itemizer deduction, the bill's giving incentives should attract needed resources to the nonprofit sector. The bill also contains a series of reforms designed to deter individuals who would use charitable organizations for personal benefit and to ensure that donations are used for charitable purposes.

"Among the charitable tax incentives included in the pension reform bill is an IRA rollover provision that allows individuals age 70 ½ and older to make charitable donations up to $100,000 from an IRA without having to count the donation as taxable income. This provision would be in effect for two years, allowing the charitable community to demonstrate its value as an incentive for increased giving that could be expanded in the future. The bill also provides expanded tax deductions for contributions of book and food inventory and qualified conservation contributions. The bill does not include a charitable deduction for taxpayers who do not itemize their deductions, despite the efforts of IS and a number of our member organizations."

Getting this provision passed is good news...in a better-than-nothing sort of way. The original proposal on the IRA Rollover was to get the right to give directly to charity without taking the money first into income starting at age 59 ½. It would have been a very powerful incentive to make the pension funds of the baby boom generation immediately available for charitable giving. The resulting legislation, however, has an interesting way of pushing out the real burden and benefit by raising the eligibility to age 70 ½. Nevertheless, we predict that it will be a popular enough provision to survive beyond its current expiration of 2007. That said, the nonprofit sector must stand up for its interests and not settle for an occasional bone. These incentives seem few and far between, not to mention watered-down and time delimited upon delivery. The IRA Charitable Rollover is only one of many suggestions for improving the state of charitable giving. Staying vigilant on matters of public policy affecting nonprofits and fundraising is extremely important.

As a note, besides Independent Sector, The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and the Council on Foundations also have excellent Web sites for understanding and tracking current legislative trends and policy pertaining to nonprofits and philanthropy.