2025 Was Good and We’d Like More of the Same: A Summary Investment Review
In the world of fiduciary investment portfolios, we’ve been on a fairly steady roll over the past few years. We saw economic collapse on a global scale in 2020 as a result of the worldwide pandemic, but somehow, at the end of the year, the major stock and bond indices produced positive returns. There were myriad reasons for investment values to drop in 2025, but somehow, the values of traditional mainstream investments still managed to rise over the course of the year.
Quick Tip: In 5 Minutes You Can Know What Each CGA Is Worth in Your Pool Using GiftWrap’s CashTrac
PIF K-1s Are Not Late
From the Blog: Make This Your Last Year for PIF K-1s
Best Asset Decision Trees and Funding Asset Analysis Tool Updated for 2026
Do You Actually Need That Actuary for Your NJ State Reserve Report?
IRS Discount Rate Election Statement
Free Foundation Source Webinar: Charitable Giving Tax Benefits 101 – Fast Facts
PG Calc Webinar The Life of a Legacy Match: Turning Inspiration Into Action
This session will provide a step-by-step guide to launching and executing a highly successful Legacy Match Program. If you've faced resistance from senior leadership in getting a Legacy Match/Challenge approved, this session will equip you with the tools, strategies, and confidence to make a compelling case. Discover how New York University leveraged a $500,000 matching pool to generate over $66 million in new bequest intentions within just 14 months—and how you can apply these insights to transform your own gift planning efforts.
Quick Tip: In 5 Minutes You Can Know What Each CGA Is Worth in Your Pool Using GiftWrap’s CashTrac
It takes just five minutes to update the market values of your individual charitable gift annuities (CGAs) in GiftWrap using the CashTrac feature. This feature will work even if your custodian only reports the value of the entire CGA pool.
CashTrac gives you the choice of two methods for adjusting gift annuity market values: net rate of return or total market value for the CGA pool. With both methods, GiftWrap will adjust each annuity’s stored market value for the time period you are adjusting and subtract each gift annuity payment made during the same period to arrive at the new market value. Whichever method you choose, CashTrac will save the computed amounts as current market values and also as historical market values for future reporting.
Open GiftWrap and go to Actions.
Open CashTracCGA Market Values.
Enter the time period for the update, typically your organization’s fiscal year or the most recent quarter.
Choose your preferred method of updating: net rate of return or total market value.
Click OK.
Using the total market value method, you can even have CashTrac allocate interest and dividends, fees and expenses, or gain/loss among the gift annuities, so that you can see how much of the change in market value is attributable to each of these items.
Maintaining gift annuity market value information with CashTrac makes it easy to determine the amount to distribute when an annuity terminates. Distributing the correct amount to the charitable purpose in the CGA agreement is a charity’s final obligation to a CGA donor.
If you have questions, reach out to Client Services at 888-474-2252 or support@pgcalc.com.
PIF K-1s Are Not Late
Tax season is upon us. Donors are collecting their tax paperwork and looking for the Schedule K-1s from their pooled income fund (PIFs). Never fear, the Schedule K-1s from the PIFs are not due until April 15. Donors may be receiving K-1s from partnerships, limited liability companies (LLCs), and S corporations in February and March, which will prompt them to ask about K-1s from PIFs. Because PIFs are a form of charitable trust, the K-1s are generated when the federal and state income tax and information returns are filed. Partnership, LLC, and S Corp returns are due March 15. The returns for PIFs and trusts, including charitable remainder trusts, are not due until April 15. Donors may need to be reminded that K-1s for PIFs may arrive a bit later.
From the Blog: Make This Your Last Year for PIF K-1s
Each year at this time, charities with pooled income fund (PIF) programs start receiving calls and emails from PIF beneficiaries who are agitated by the perceived “lateness” of their Form K-1 (by law, PIF K-1s are not due until April 15 – see above). Many beneficiaries receive fairly modest PIF incomes, and it is not uncommon for a PIF beneficiary to be waiting on a K-1 only to learn that their reportable annual income is less than $100. In the Venn diagram of PIF beneficiaries who receive scant annual income and also get angry about the perceived K-1 delay, there is an opportunity to present a voluntary severance from the PIF.
Best Asset Decision Trees and Funding Asset Analysis Tool Updated for 2026
Our popular decision trees that help you determine which asset type – cash, appreciated stock, or a QCD – is most advantageous to fund an outright gift or gift annuity have been updated for 2026. Both are free and available here:
We have also developed this free Microsoft Excel tool for fundraisers to calculate which of these asset types is optimal for funding an outright gift or charitable gift annuity, given the gift amount, donor’s marginal tax rates and required minimum distribution, and other factors. Download the Excel file here:
Do You Actually Need That Actuary for Your NJ State Reserve Report?
Recently, New Jersey began to require the actuarial verification of state reserve reports submitted as part of a charity’s annual filing for their gift annuity program if the charity offers flexible gift annuities (FGAs). However, the state has long required actuarial verification of reserve reports for all programs, even those that don’t issue FGAs, with one exception.
According to New Jersey’s publication “Yearly Filing Instructions for the Annual Statement of the Segregated Gift Annuity Fund,” in lieu of actuarial verification of the calculated state reserve, a charity can submit “a certification from an officer of the organization, that the organization uses appropriate software, i.e. PG Calc, Crescendo, or similar, and has the technical expertise to calculate the required reserves.”
If you use PG Calc’s GiftWrap software to run your New Jersey state reserve report, and your organization doesn’t offer FGAs, you can submit the report without verification by an actuary. You can draft a letter to New Jersey to accompany the state reserve report submission instead. The letter should include the following:
The position you hold at your organization;
An affirmation that you used GiftWrap to create the state reserve report you are submitting; and
An affirmation that you have the technical expertise needed to run state reserve calculations.
If you don’t feel confident with your technical expertise, on April 28-29 PG Calc will cover FASB liability calculations and state reserve reporting in our Advanced GiftWrap training. You may also contact Client Services and request that a Client Services Advisor review how to run the New Jersey state reserve report with you. If you don’t use GiftWrap, you can engage PG Calc to run New Jersey state reserve reports for you through our ResVal program, which includes a certification letter.
To answer the titular question, if you offer FGAs, you do need an actuary to verify your New Jersey reserve report. However, if you don’t offer FGAs and you use GiftWrap to create your reserve report, a simple certification letter will suffice.
IRS Discount Rate Election Statement
Many planned giving professionals are aware that using the highest of the 3 most recent IRS discount rates in calculations for charitable gift annuities and charitable remainer trusts results in the highest possible charitable deductions. Using the lowest available IRS discount rate, on the other hand, maximizes the charitable deductions in cases of charitable lead trusts and retained life estates. And aside from the topic of charitable deductions, using the lowest possible IRS discount rate for charitable gift annuities results in the highest possible amounts of tax-free income.
There is far less awareness, however, of a requirement by the IRS that is related to the flexibility in the choice of discount rates: that of the IRS Discount Rate Election Statement. In cases where split-interest gift calculations make use of a discount rate from a previous month – for whatever reason – federal tax law requires the donor to attach this special form to their income tax return for the filing year in which the gift was made.
Based on our conversations and communications with MANY of our clients over the years, this requirement is unknown by a significant number of planned giving professionals. And to be fair, technically, this requirement is on the donor, not on the gift officer. But most folks involved in fundraising want to do whatever they can to help their donors in complying with any and all tax reporting requirements. This form is quite easy to produce in PGM Anywhere or even the desktop version, Planned Giving Manager. In either version, it is simply one of the choices available under Narratives, and there are just a couple of pop-up questions to answer. Please feel free to contact Client Services at 888-474-2252 or support@pgcalc.com if you have any questions or need assistance in producing this form.
Here is an example statement and the instructions to the donor:
Instructions to Donor
You are receiving the above election statement because the IRS discount rate used to compute the value of your charitable contribution was based on a rate for one of the two months prior to the month of your gift.
The IRS requires a planned gift donor to make an explicit election in the event that the value of the donor's charitable contribution was computed using the IRS discount rate for either of the two months prior to the month of gift. The month of your gift is March, 2026 and the IRS discount rate used to compute the value of your charitable contribution is for February, 2026.
You must attach the election statement to your federal income tax return for the tax year in which you claim your income tax charitable deduction for this gift. You should provide your tax preparer with a copy of this election statement.
If you are filing your federal income tax return electronically and are also filing a Form 8283, Noncash Charitable Contributions, you can submit this election statement separately on paper as an attachment to the Form 8283 by using a Form 8453, U.S. Individual Income Tax Transmittal for an IRS e-file Return. Otherwise, you will have to file your entire tax return on paper in order to attach this election statement. Please consult your tax preparer for guidance.
Free Foundation Source Webinar: Charitable Giving Tax Benefits 101 – Fast Facts
In this 30-minute webinar, Chief Legal Officer Jeffrey Haskell will break down the tax benefit basics for effective philanthropic planning, highlight common considerations, and share practical strategies for maximizing the impact of charitable dollars through tax-efficient planning. Key topics we’ll cover in this discussion include:
General understanding of charitable deductions (FMV vs. Basis) and applicable AGI percentage caps
Donations of publicly traded stock (FMV) and other property coming to a foundation via an estate
Direct charitable activities, scholarships, awards, hardship, emergency, and medical grants, and foreign grants
What is a fiscal sponsor and when does it make sense to use one?
