Attended by more than 1,800 people, this year’s event was the most comprehensive in its history—featuring two education-focused breakfasts, four sessions of fundraising programs on nine tracks, as well as a series of interactive workshops held throughout the day. Attendees had the opportunity to network with colleagues and explore the services offered by more than fifty exhibitors in the Solutions Center as well as sign up for mentoring sessions in a special section set aside for personalized resume review and career coaching. In addition to the special CFRE track, newcomers to the field were offered the opportunity to earn a Fundamentals in Fundraising Certificate in just one day. The three programs described below are just a sampling of the wealth of wisdom and information shared at this premier fundraising conference dedicated to the passion and enthusiasm of those very special people who have chosen fundraising as their life’s work.

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Personalized Philanthropy: Crash Your Fundraising Matrix
And Make a Real Shift to Donor-Focused Giving
"Philanthropy that focuses on donor interests is a rarity!"

_{Steven L. Meyers, Ph.D. Vice President, Center of Personalized Philanthropy,
American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science}

In this compelling program, Steven Meyers, Ph.D. challenges his audience to recognize that their meticulously organized fundraising initiatives often ignore personal donor interests. He points specifically to deferred gift instruments such as bequests and trusts which marginalize donors by placing them outside the traditional "major donor clubs" enjoyed by cash contributors. In order to bring donors closer to the impact of their gifts, Steve has created three Personalized Gift Designs.

• Virtual Endowment – this instrument encourages a donor to support a scholarship or program long before he/she may be capable of making a substantial gift. The donor agrees to underwrite the cost of a program that ignites their passion through an annual gift over a specified number of years—with a pledge for a future gift (often a bequest or trust) to endow the program in perpetuity.

• Philanthropic Mortgage – with this vehicle the donor makes an annual gift "over and above" the yearly costs of a program he/she is supporting—with the surplus used to build an endowment designed to sustain the program permanently. One can think of the Philanthropic Mortgage as a pledge to be paid out over time, with a portion of the gift used to support the expenses of the program until the endowment is fully funded.

• Step-Up Gifts – gifts of this type allow the donor to fund an endowment or chair at different levels over time. For instance an endowment can initially be funded as a "Masters Scholarship" at the $100,000 level with the opportunity for the donor to gradually add to the fund, moving it to a "Doctoral Scholarship" at the $250,000 level, and possibly a "Professorial Chair" at $1 million.

Each of these "Killer Apps", as Steve refers to them, engages the donor through their interests, and, at the same time, allows them to envision future giving in the form of large outright or planned gifts. At the same time, the donor can join the prestigious ranks of the major contributors of the institution as opposed to having his or her planned gift relegated to the hinterland of a Legacy Society.

See the complete article here.

Elite Advisor Report with Tim Belber, Phil Cubeta, Randy Fox, me and John A Warnick.

As we discussed in Part One, purposeful philanthropy is the art of thoughtfully, intentionally and purposefully integrating the passion, spirit and commitment of philanthropy into the fabric of our family system. With record numbers of boomers reaching retirement age and a new generation of younger people looking to make gifts with social impact, the landscape of philanthropy has changed dramatically. Are you and your team keeping up with client wishes?

A roundtable interview in the good company of Tim Belber, Phil Cubeta, Randy Fox, me and John A Warnick.

• As record numbers of boomers approach retirement age, their focus shifts to distribution of assets rather than accumulating wealth. Are your clients’ heirs prepared to receive it
• Affluent millennials look for ways to have impact rather than just give away dollars
• If you try to profit from the generosity of others, you are likely to fail. However, if you want to leverage your talents as an advisor by working with those who are generous, then you can become a magnet for some of the best, wealthiest and best-connected people in your community.
• The most effective philanthropy needs to be driven not by balance but by three things: head, heart and mind.

About the Author - Steve Leimberg

Review originally appeared in LISI Charitable Planning Newsletter (June, 2015) at http://www.leimbergservices.com Copyright 2015 Leimberg Information Services, Inc.

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The author of this groundbreaking book, Steven L. Meyers, PhD, is vice president of The Center for Personalized Philanthropy at the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science. His book Personalized Philanthropy, may well revolutionize the way charities raise large amounts of money in the future. His outside-the-box mind makes possible the previously un-imagined.

I usually bend over a page in a book when I want to come back to (or steal) an idea or concept. When I finished reading this book, almost every page was bent over – most with X’s to high light concepts I wanted to share with others.

Let me put it another way:

THE SMARTEST MAN IN THE WORLD

As I was growing up, my father repeatedly gave me lessons and told me stories that he hoped I’d learn from. Many times, he said to me,

"Only a fool learns from his own mistakes" and followed that with...

"A wise man learns from the mistakes of others!" One day he told me of "The Smartest Man in the World."

"It wasn’t the man who created the cash box nor the man who invented the adding machine.

It was the man who put them both together and called it the cash register!

It got me thinking about the new suitcase I own. How long was it that we moved clothing we were taking on a trip in a trunk and it took two people to grab it by the corners? And then, someone added leather handles. And years later, someone else added two wheels and an expandable handle and called it a suitcase (must have been an inventor attorney – the same person who invented the brief case). And then someone added four wheels! And I always wondered, why did it take so long to make these improvements and why were we so oblivious to what could be a blindingly simple, workable, and elegant solution?

Steven Meyers takes readers interested in innovative philanthropy through this same thought process – shaking us and making us ask – over and over again – "It’s obvious! So why didn’t we see that solution – before?"

Meyers shows us what’s wrong with our philanthropic large gift raising thinking – and empowers us to break out of the tyranny of the traditional. His book should be purchased – and read – over and over – by development officers, would be and current philanthropists – and by every estate and charitable planning attorney, CPA, insurance agent, financial planner, and wealth manager who is willing to work with an open mind and create what Meyers calls "The right gift, for the right purpose, for the right donor." These are donor-focused (fully engaging with the donor’s needs or desires) integrated, full spectrum holistic gifts.

Meyers three jaw-dropping simple/powerful moving beyond convention concepts of "Virtual Endowments," "Equity Gifts," and "Step-Up" gifts are game changers.

Here’s one example:

Most of us, when we purchase a home, don’t have all the cash necessary (or if we do, we may have a better alternative use for it) to plunk down the money and move in. So we obtain a mortgage and pay off the principle over time. We don’t have to wait 20 or 30 years to "move in."

Meyers suggests that the same principle can be applied to a person who wanted to have a chair in her name, say at Villanova Law School, or have a library room named in her honor at, say at the Library at Fernandina Beach, Florida. Assume she could not – or did not want to - make the outright gift today of (let’s assume, $1,000,000) necessary to establish the endowment.

Suppose she had given the Villanova Law School or Fernandina Beach Library $1,000,000 today – and the charity had invested it – and withdrawn 5% each year as its "spending rate." It would have $50,000 a year to spend.

Now suppose, going back to our real life example, the potential donor didn’t give $1,000,000 today – but instead committed to giving annual gifts equal to the spending rate of $1,000,000, i.e., she committed to giving $50,000 a year for the rest of her life. And she simultaneously committed to a "balloon gift" of $1,000,000 at her death (perhaps through assets she owned or maybe even better, funded with life insurance the charity would own on her life and that she would pay for).

In other words we link two gifts ((1) a multiyear pledge for annual gifts based on the life expectancy of the donor in the amount of the spending rate the charity would have used had it received the endowment up front and (2) a separate pledge or contact to include a gift by bequest or life insurance contract of the original endowment amount) under an umbrella plan.

Knowing that this irrevocable combination pledge will accomplish essentially the same overall benefit as an immediate gift of the lump sum, the Law School or Library could recognize and honor the donor today – and the donor would have the immediate pleasure of seeing and realizing with certainly the impact of her gift.

So simple, so elegant, so workable! It’s like putting the cash box and the adding machine together and making a cash register – or putting four wheels and handles on a trunk and making it into a suitcase.

Like so many concepts in this book, you’ll say to yourself, "Why didn’t we think of this – before?"

1: The Two Cultures of Fundraising: Crashing Your Matrix

2: Matrix-Killing Apps of Personalized Philanthropy

3: Radically Rethinking Endowment: Examples

4: Beyond Conventional Solicitation: Personalized Best Practices

5: Counting, Numbers, Value, and The Big Picture

6: Being the Change and Making Your Own Shift

Personalized Philanthropy can be ordered through