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Playing the long game: Encouraging your clients to plan ahead in 2025

Your clients (and you!) may still be recovering from a hectic end to 2024, but don’t let that stop you from helping families get a jump on their charitable planning for 2025. 

As compelling as year-end giving may be, perhaps even more compelling are the reasons for planning and launching a charitable giving strategy early in the year–even in January. Benefits of a year-long giving strategy include:

  • Helping nonprofit organizations meet their budgets all year long can save them from worrying as much about whether constituents' ongoing needs can be addressed.
  • Increasing cash flow predictability and being proactive, not reactive, in supporting the causes your clients love. Your clients might even consider setting up automatic contributions to their donor-advised or other types of funds at the Tidewater Jewish Foundation (TJF) to formalize this component as part of an ongoing plan.
  • Taking advantage of plenty of time to learn more about the charities a client plans to support so that a client can be an even more informed and impactful donor, including fully utilizing TJF’s expertise and resources.
  • Giving the client (and you) time to include children and grandchildren in the charitable giving conversation and tax-planning structures as a learning experience for the whole family.
  • If your client is over 70 ½, being able to avoid the year-end scramble to process a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) from an IRA directly to an eligible charity, such as an unrestricted or field-of-interest fund at TJF, by executing a QCD in the first quarter.
  • Leaving enough time to explore options for more complex giving techniques, such as gifts of closely-held business interests or charitable remainder trusts, that might provide tax benefits as well as meet a client’s charitable goals, rather than waiting until the last minute when it may be hard for everyone to coordinate calendars.

As always, the Tidewater Jewish Foundation (TJF) is here to help. Please reach out to our team to learn more about how your clients can make the biggest difference with their charitable dollars and how the TJF team can help you ensure that your clients can fully carry out their charitable wishes for 2025.