Underwater Gift Annuities: Don’t Go Down with the Ship!
We frequently hear about so-called “underwater gift annuities” from our clients. We’re talking about those charitable gift annuities (CGAs) that were established many years ago – by donors with the best of intentions – but for which, over the years, the annuity payments have used up all the gift principal. The annuitant (who is frequently the donor) has probably lived well past his or her original life expectancy, but the sponsoring charity is still obligated to continue making annuity payments for as long as the annuitant is still alive. This is not an unusual occurrence. We hear this same sad story again and again.
How did this happen? How does the sponsoring charity manage the situation going forward? And does the charity have any options at this point?
Life insurance: the bane of charitable giving, right? Not so fast! A well-planned contribution of life insurance can be extremely beneficial for the organization as well as the donor. In this webinar, we will explore examples of life insurance gifts that really worked and review some of the pitfalls to be avoided.
Quick Tip: Add Your Charity’s Logo to PGM Anywhere Presentations
From the Blog: Is This the Worst Gift Annuity Ever Written?
PG Calc’s Ann McPherson Awarded PGGNE Distinguished Service Honor
ACGA Keeps Rates the Same and Clarifies CGA Regulations in Georgia
Foundation Source Acquires Giving Place Platform for Private Foundations and Family Offices
Enjoy Boston This Summer and Hone Your Gift Planning Skills at Our In-Person August Software Trainings
PG Calc Is on the Road Again
Nothing Says Summer Fun Like FASB Liabilities Reporting
Add Impact to Your Next CGA Mailing with BatchCalcs
Quick Tip: Add Your Charity’s Logo to PGM Anywhere Presentations:
You can include your charity’s logo on every PGM Anywhere chart, graph, and diagram. It’s easy to do! All you need is a .jpeg, .gif, or .png of your logo that is 1MB or less.
Choose Customize and then select Organizations. If you don’t see the Customize icon on your dashboard, you don’t have administrative privileges and will need to share these steps with your PGM Anywhere administrator.
Click the edit icon next to your organization’s name and click the General title bar to open the General section.
Click the plus icon next to Charity image for headings. A standard Windows Open dialog will open.
Find the .jpeg, .gif, or .png of your logo, then click Open. Your logo will now appear in the image picker below Charity image for headings with a gray box around it. This means it will appear in presentation headings.
If you wish, you can also add your logo so that it represents your charity in diagrams. To do this, click the plus icon next to Charity icon for diagrams, then repeat step 4.
When done adding and selecting your charity’s logo, click Save to save your changes. Note that these changes will apply to all PGM Anywhere users at your charity.
Contact Client Services at support@pgcalc.com or at 888-474-2252 if you need help.
From the Blog: Is This the Worst Gift Annuity Ever Written?
The caller was calm but clearly concerned. She wanted to know if a particular charitable gift annuity (CGA), written twenty-something years ago, had been calculated correctly. And she also wanted to know if there was anything that the sponsoring charity could do now “to get out of it.”
She had piqued our interest. We see a lot of good charitable gift annuities that have been written over the years, but we’ve also seen some highly questionable examples. A charitable gift annuity is a split-interest gift, an arrangement between the sponsoring charity and the donor. The donor makes a significant contribution to the charity – typically at least $10,000, and frequently much more – and the charity agrees to make payments to one or two persons for the rest of their lives.
PG Calc’s Ann McPherson Awarded PGGNE Distinguished Service Honor
At the Planned Giving Group of New England (PGGNE) All-Day Conference on May 7th, the entire family of Ann McPherson, Ann’s PG Calc family, and New England's planned giving community celebrated Ann as the posthumous recipient of the PGGNE David M. Donaldson Distinguished Service Award. Ann's husband, Neil Coutu, accepted the award on her behalf.
In his presentation remarks, PG Calc President Gary Pforzheimer described Ann's 20-year planned giving career:
“When I first met Ann and she joined PG Calc she didn’t know a CRAT from a block of cheese, but she knew human behavior and excelled at marketing. She learned the rest and became a national expert in planned giving marketing in a very short period of time. Over that 20-year career, she worked with hundreds of organizations, but the one closest to her was the system of hospitals now under the umbrella of MGB [Mass General Brigham]. Ann liked the challenge of the small programs that needed basic assistance to get out the word that Planned Giving was a win-win for donor and charity. But she really relished the complicated projects that helped the largest Planned Giving shops in the MGB system plan their marketing programs over years and measure their successes. You could always find Ann with a new productivity or list-making tool, and she created an organization-focused vortex around her. When asked to serve this group she did so proudly for 4 years on the Board of PGGNE. As with everything she did, she upped the game of the Board.
“Ann passed away this past summer after a 14-year battle with breast cancer. She is survived by two wonderful children I watched grow up, and an adoring husband, Neil, who I am proud to call a friend. I let Neil know of Ann being honored for this award by PGGNE and he jumped at the chance to be here today to accept it on her behalf, knowing how her work-life gave her so much pleasure and allowed her to balance her very busy non-work-life.”
ACGA Keeps Rates the Same and Clarifies CGA Regulations in Georgia
On May 12th, the American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA) confirmed in an email to its members that it would be keeping its suggested maximum annuity rates for charitable gift annuities (CGAs) unchanged, despite recent market fluctuations.
On April 22, the ACGA sent an announcement reminding its members about a recent rule change for organizations issuing CGAs in Georgia. All organizations registered in the state must renew their Georgia license between October 1st and December 31st each year. Any organization that did not renew its license during the new renewal window likely had its license deemed inactive and would need to register anew.
As a reminder, PG Calc clients using our Gift Annuity Annual Filing Service automatically had their registration renewed by our service during the correct Georgia renewal period and are already fully compliant. If you would like to learn more about PG Calc’s Gift Annuity Annual Filing Service, visit our website.
Foundation Source Acquires Giving Place Platform for Private Foundations and Family Offices
On April 30, Foundation Source, PG Calc’s parent company, acquired Giving Place, a software platform for family office giving programs and private foundations that brings unique functionality to our growing suite of integrated, enterprise-grade solutions. The addition of the software platform will help donors and their advisors better meet their charitable objectives and achieve maximum impact.
The acquisition of Giving Place follows the acquisition of Vennfi last fall. Vennfi is the technology that powers donor-advised fund sponsor Charityvest. The addition of PG Calc, Vennfi, and Giving Place makes Foundation Source the leading provider of scalable technology solutions spanning private foundations, donor-advised funds, and planned giving programs for donors, nonprofits, institutions, and the wealth advisors who serve them. You can read the announcement here.
Enjoy Boston This Summer and Hone Your Gift Planning Skills at Our In-Person August Software Trainings
Join us in Boston for in-person gift planning training this August. We will be holding Gift Planning with PGM Anywhere Introductory on Wednesday, August 13 and the Advanced class on Thursday, August 14. Learn from PG Calc’s experts and from your peers at either session or both.
Classes will be held at the Wyndham Boston Beacon Hill both days from 9:00 am - 4:00 pm. Hotel rooms will be available at a discounted group rate of $240/night until July 13, so register now:
Gain invaluable hands-on experience using case study examples to illustrate gift options while discovering the powerful and effective features of your gift planning software. This class is taught using PGM Anywhere, our web-based gift illustration software.
This full-day seminar explores gift planning beyond the basics. We will review advanced gift planning techniques, including retained life estates, charitable lead trusts, and estate planning models using the flexible functionality of PGM Anywhere.
PG Calc Is on the Road Again
May means that many planned giving conferences are in full swing. Here’s where we have been and will be heading. Find us exhibiting and speaking at a conference near you:
May 7: PGGNE Planned Giving Group of New England Annual All-Day Conference, Bentley University Conference Center, Waltham, MA
Gary Pforzheimer and Kara Morin presented “This, Not That: From Challenging Gifts to Charitable Wins”
May 12-14: Carolinas Planned Giving Conference 2025, Hendersonville, NC
May 16: PPGGNY Philanthropic Planning Group of Greater New York 2025 Planned Giving Day, 117 W 46th St, New York, NY
May 21-23: SoCal Council of Charitable Gift Planners Western Regional Planned Giving Conference, Westin South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, CA
June 17: NCGPC National Capital Gift Planning Council Planned Giving Day, American University Washington College of Law, Washington, DC
Nothing Says Summer Fun Like FASB Liabilities Reporting
Some things come around once a year – school’s out, summer vacations, “the holiday season,” and so on. But not everything that happens once every 12 months is quite so pleasant. For nonprofits, the two months that follow the end of their fiscal year — July and August for many of our clients — typically require a good amount of work to tally up the numbers and polish off the financial reports. For charities that sponsor life income gift arrangements, the year-end accounting process includes calculations of FASB liabilities, the estimated liabilities representing payments to be made to planned gift beneficiaries in future years.
The process is not rocket science, as they say, but it can be arduous, especially to those unfamiliar with actuarial calculations. PG Calc offers a couple of different ways to help. Our GiftWrap software allows organizations and their financial agents to calculate the FASB liabilities for all life income gifts at the click of a button. Alternatively, our Client Services team can perform these calculations for you at a surprisingly modest price.
Please contact us at support@pgcalc.com or 888-474-2252 if you have questions about either of these alternatives. Fiscal year end and FASB season do not have to be completely joyless.
Add Impact to Your Next CGA Mailing with BatchCalcs
Are you planning a mailing to your gift annuity prospects this summer or fall? Conveying the benefits of a gift annuity to your donors can be difficult. That’s where PG Calc’s BatchCalcs service comes in.
With the help of our BatchCalcs service, your mailing can include a gift amount tailored to each prospect, along with the deduction, annuity amount, and tax-free portion they can expect. We can provide you with just the BatchCalcs data or create print-ready letters and/or Summary of Benefits charts for each prospect.
