HANS FINZEL: Hi, this is Hans Finzel, president of WorldVenture. I’m pleased to introduce to you today PlanNow, a new estate planning service that is a partnership between WorldVenture and a ministry called PhilanthroCorp. PhilanthroCorp has been around for many years and is used by many large ministries throughout the United States. The service is completely confidential and completely free. You know, in the years that I’ve been here at WorldVenture I have been so blessed to see people that have remembered Christ’s work in their estate plans. We have been able to do amazing things for the Kingdom of God around the world by gifts that people gave as part of their legacy. So check out PlanNow. Again, it’s confidential, it’s free. This web site is filled with great resources. Thanks so much for your partnership with WorldVenture. I’m so happy to have in my studio today Greg Ring, who is the co-founder and president of PhilanthroCorp. Welcome, Greg!
GREG RING: Hey, thanks!
HANS FINZEL: Good to have you. We’re going to unpack a little bit about what PhilanthroCorp is all about and uh, but you’ve been in this… What is the line of work that you are in and how you advise Christian folks in terms of their giving?
GREG RING: Yeah, it’s called planned giving or charitable planning; charitable tax planning, charitable estate planning – a lot of different things -- but we are really helping folks understand how do I give out of what we call the “big jar”?
HANS FINZEL: Yeah, now let’s talk about the big jar. For you folks listening out there who are donors, every time you put money in the offering plate or send an electronic contribution from your checkbook to your favorite ministry or your church, you are giving out of the little jar. And we want to talk about the big jar that you have that you may not have really thought about giving out of. So kind of unpack the “big jar, little jar” philosophy there, Greg.
GREG RING: Sure, Hans. One of the big ah-ha’s that we get as we work with folks around the country has to do with what we call the “big jar giving”. Um, the average American has about 9% of their net worth in cash and about 91% is in assets. But all the very important, great books that are out there -- Randy Alcorn and Dave Ramsey and Larry Burkett and others - they tend to be focused on cash, on my paycheck, don’t abuse credit cards, tithe, save for retirement – those kind of things. But if I have 91% of my…Whatever God has given me, whether it’s modest or large. If 91% of what I have is stuff, it’s not cash, how do I steward that? And we refer to that at PhilanthroCorp as the great convergence. We’re at the front end of the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in the history of the world, according to Boston College professor, Dr. Paul Schervish. In their study they estimated that from 1998 to 2052, $41 trillion will move from one generation to the next. I talked to Dr. Schervish early in 2010 and he said even after the economic upheaval we’ve had in the past year-and-a-half, that is still their most conservative estimate. So as we look at this great convergence as we talk about it, it’s the convergence of never before in history opportunities for sharing the Gospel, for evangelism, for church planting, for discipleship, for fulfilling the Great Commission. But all those things at the end of the day take money and this convergence is the ministry opportunity that WorldVenture is a very, very significant part of, coupled with never before in history resources, most of them which are in the big jar – the 91%. A big part of what we are doing with WorldVenture and the PlanNow ministry is to help friends of WorldVenture understand, “How do I do that? How do I give out of the big jar? What does that look like?” This stuff is typically illiquid. It’s things like my life insurance death benefit or an I.R.A. or a 401(k). Maybe I have some home equity. The things that I can’t really give currently but I can through smart planning give in my estate; give in my will or my trust. In a way that still blesses my children but reduces or eliminates taxes and gives me an opportunity to impact the Kingdom. So the great convergence and the big jar is something that we want to work with PlanNow and WorldVenture to help our friends across the country and even in other parts of the world understand. One of the questions that we get very commonly is, “Well, wouldn’t somebody have all this planning done, particularly if you have a donor, or in your situation, if you have a larger, more complex, larger estate?” It’s easy to assume that if I have a brand new revocable living trust and I just spent $5,000 getting this new trust put in place, I’ve probably done all that can be done. I cannot emphasize enough how unlikely that is. Um, first of all, more than 70% of Americans don’t even have a current will, so it starts there. This is my 31st year doing this. PhilanthroCorp has been around -- we’ve worked with thousands upon thousands of donors and believers across the country over the last 15 years. And the vast majority of people that even do have a current will or a current trust in place, the vast majority have not taken advantage of some of the tools that are available by Congress to help us reduce or eliminate taxes and impact eternity in a way that can have significant impact. For those of you who have spent significant amount of money, let me tell you that I could spend a long time giving stories of people. I had a fellow who is the chief technology officer for a very large publicly traded technology company. He said to me a few years ago, “Greg, I just spent $15,000 and six weeks getting a new estate plan put in place and,” he said, “my biggest frustration is, I don’t understand it. I don’t know what it does. I don’t have any idea – I couldn’t tell you what this plan does.” And so I would just encourage you, don’t just assume that because you have a brand new will and because you spent five, 10 or 15 thousand dollars doing it that everything is put in place. We have the privilege of working with WorldVenture and the PlanNow ministry here to be available to you. We can look at your situation. If you have done a great job we’ll just tell you that. There’s no risk. We’ll just say, “Hey, you have done an outstanding job. You’re the one out of 20 that has really done an exceptional work.” We’ll do that confidentially. There’s no cost to you. We’re on a retainer with WorldVenture so they are paying our bill but we can come along side and help you analyze this. And if we can help you, we’ll tell you. We’ll tell you specifically what we might suggest. I should add that we are not in the product or commission business if you wanted to work with us. We don’t sell insurance, we don’t have a financial planning practice on the side, we don’t manage money. So if it came time for implementation we would work with your advisors. If you needed insurance for some reason we would just… You would work with your folks; we would not be involved in that. We don’t draft legal documents. If you don’t have an attorney we can give you a referral. We have a network of Christian attorneys across the country who will give you a quote in advance at discounted rates for drafting a charitable plan that would fulfill your goals and objectives. So I would encourage you – if you think you have things put together, a “no risk” opportunity for you is to let us talk with you and if we can help you we will tell you. If we can’t we’ll just say, “Good job”. The oldest tool in the charitable planning or planned giving tool chest is what’s called a charitable gift annuity (C.G.A). This has been around since 1843 when the American Bible Society brought this concept over from Europe. The charitable gift annuity is a contract – an agreement – between, in this case, WorldVenture and a donor, where they can exchange an asset. Say a money market or a certificate of deposit (a C.D.), some stock, whatever it might be, they can trade that in and exchange it for a life-time income stream. This income is based on the age of the donor. If they are married it’s going to pay as long as both spouses are living. If it’s a single person it will be as long as one spouse. Sometimes it’s done for a term of years – that’s another option. There’s quite a bit of flexibility but the point is that you could typically get much higher return – much higher income – even if it involves invading the principle, which is often the case in today’s interest markets. An example of this would be a donor that we worked with who had bank stock paying 7/10 of 1% annually. This was her annual income so on $100,000 (for example) her income would be $700 a year. This widow traded this bank stock in to this charity, this ministry, in exchange for a charitable gift annuity. At her age she was able to go from $700 year to $8,200 a year – 8.2% - so a dramatic difference for somebody who already had in mind to give to ministry in her estate plan; it was something we had already helped her with previously. But she was able to go from a very modest income - $700 a year – to $8,200 a year on the same asset. So a charitable gift annuity is a tool that can be very helpful to you in retirement. It might be something that you can keep in mind for a missionary, perhaps. That would be another option; another use of the charitable gift annuity. You might look at the monthly or annual support that you are providing for a missionary and set up a gift annuity that would go for their lifetime. There is a lot of flexibility. It’s a tool that PlanNow, working with PhilanthroCorp, can share with you and see if it’s appropriate to explore whether or not this is an option that fits for you.
HANS FINZEL: Wow. Well, in case you are listening – whether you have a small estate, middle-sized, or large and you need some advice or you just want to start with our Estate Planning Organizer, absolutely free, absolutely confidential – go to WorldVenture.com and click on the PlanNow button and you’ll find Estate Planning which will take you to the Estate Planning Organizer. Greg, thanks for being on the program today.
GREG RING: Always a pleasure to be with you, Hans. Thanks so much.
January 31, 2012We would like to share about one family of the children at risk we have visited. One day we arrived to do the Bible study and both parents were drunk! Another day the father was at work and the mother was drunk with with several other adults who were also drunk. One of the little girls was there by herself with those adults. We decided to take her to our house for the weekend and call a neighbor to let the mother know where her daughter was, which worked out fine because the…See More
