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Eight Steps to Help Advisors and Charities Complete Gifts, Not CompeteEight Steps to Help Advisors and Charities Complete Gifts, Not Compete

Charities and financial advisors shouldn't compete. Here's how they can work together more effectively to realize maximum benefits for all.

Robert F. Sharpe, Jr, CEO

July 6, 2017

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While charities may compete among themselves for donors, for-profit advisors and other charities over providing products and services to their clients, we really shouldn’t see the process of charitable-gift planning as involving competition between the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of believing that competition is inevitable—until one breaks down the process of completing a planned gift into a number of distinct and interrelated components. 

Let’s take a look at the acronym C-O-M-P-L-E-T-E, as it may be helpful in understanding how the various parties can work together more effectively to adequately fund the charitable dimension of U.S. society. 

This is an adapted version of the author’s original article in the July 2017 issue of Trusts & Estates.

About the Author

Robert F. Sharpe, Jr

CEO, Encore

Robert F. Sharpe, Jr. is CEO of Encore in Memphis, Tenn. He is a nationally recognized pioneer, leader and authority in the field of philanthropy. During more than 35 years serving America’s nonprofit community, he has consulted nationally with educational, health, social service, arts and religious organizations and institutions in the planning and implementation of their major, planned gift and endowment development efforts. A graduate of Vanderbilt University and Cornell Law School, he served as a development officer for a liberal arts college prior to practicing law with a major law firm specializing in taxation and estate planning.

Robert is chairman of the philanthropy editorial board of Trusts & Estates magazine and co-author of the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners (CGP) Model Standards of Gift Valuation. He has served on the board of Giving USA and on strategic task forces for the CGP. Among other publications, his remarks have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek, Forbes, Smart Money, The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Kiplinger’s.

He is a frequent speaker at gatherings across the country including Planned Giving Councils in New York, Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles, the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners national conference, the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) National Conference, and the American Bankers Association Wealth Management and Trust Conference.