Planning for Wealth Transfer, Part 2

In a webinar last month titled "Positioning for Wealth Transfer," Campbell & Co. Vice President Bruce Matthews talked about the need for organizations to prepare programs that take full advantage of this boon.

Last week, in Part 1 of this two-part series covering the presentation, we outlined Matthews' advice for creating a planned-giving program. Here, in Part 2, we lay out his thoughts on creating a bequest program.

Bequests, Matthews said, "will be the main vehicle by which individuals will transfer wealth to the next generation." Yet, according to data from the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning, only 50 percent of Americans have wills, and only 16 percent of that total have charitable beneficiaries. What's more, 68 percent of bequest donors have not notified the nonprofit beneficiaries of their gifts.

Citing information from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, Matthews said individuals most likely to name a charity in their wills are between the ages of 40 and 60 — much younger than typically thought by most organizations.

"What that means is that if you wait until someone's 70 to ask them to put you in their will, it's probably too late," Matthews said.

Some other information Matthews shared to help organizations pick out good planned-giving prospects includes: