Finance

Jonathan
Lowe:
Planned
giving has
double
benefits.

LISA BARSON
Special to the Jewish News

t is a problem facing every not-for-profit

organization: how to attract new, younger

contributors to what has become an older

donor base.

Some organizations have gone to great measures,

such as special programming not linked directly to

donations, to attract younger audiences. Today, many

non-profits are also using "planned giving." It's prov-

ing to be an effective method of maintaining charita-

ble funding sources while offering valuable tax benefits

to donors.

Six years ago, the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan

Detroit hired Jonathan Lowe to deal solely with the

issue of planned giving. Federation Chief Operating

Officer Mark Davidoff explains that Lowe serves as a

"philanthropic counselor" to the community. Among

the many plans offered by the Federation, including

endowment funds, capital campaigns and philanthrop-

ic funds, "planned giving is the thread that runs

through it all."

Double
Benefit

Planned giving and advance

charitable trusts help the charity

and the donor.

Lowe is a former attorney and estate planner and, more
recently, an assistant dean at the University of Michigan Law
School. When he began his job, "there was just a small endow-
ment fund at the time, but it was clear that there was a genera-
tion of people who wanted to make a difference for the future of
the Jewish community in Detroit."
There are a number of ways to arrange for a planned gift. The
easiest, according to Lowe, is the charitable gift annuity, in
which the charity actually pays back the donor a portion of the
gift.
With a charitable gift annuity, the donor can give cash, securi-
ties or real estate. If the gift is other than cash, the organization
has the property appraised and sells it to generate cash. The orga-
nization then invests the funds and agrees to pay the donor a set
amount — quarterly or annually — for the rest of the donor's
life, or even to a surviving spouse for the rest of his or her life.
Any remaining portion of the gift is used according to the specif-
ic instructions of the donor or by the organization's discretion.
"The beauty of the charitable gift annuity is that the donor
gets a charitable deduction the year they give the gift," explains
Lowe, "and will continue to receive an income throughout the

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