Tax-Smart Planned Giving Strategies with Stevenson University

Eric Brotman [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Tax Smart Plan Giving with Stevenson University. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. A little bit about our panelists first. Chris, if you’d introduce yourself to everyone watching and listening.

Chris Vaughan [00:00:13]:
Sure. Happy to. Thank you, Eric, and thank you, Manny. My name is Chris Vaughn. I’m the vice president for university advancement at Stevenson University. I’ve been at Stevenson now for seven years, and I’ve been in fundraising, at a number of different institutions for twenty three years. It’s, it’s a pleasure to be here, and, again, thank you to Eric and, Manny for the opportunity. We’re gonna be talking about, planned giving, a number of the projects we have going on here on campus, and ways to support Stevenson.

Eric Brotman [00:00:45]:
Terrific. Manny, introduce yourself? Sure. Sure.

Manny Essien [00:00:48]:
I’ll keep this, quick here. I’m an advisor here at BFG Financial Advisors. I actually work very closely with Eric. I also am an alum of Stevenson University, so I’m very happy to be here and very happy to talk about the topics that we have for you guys today.

Eric Brotman [00:01:03]:
And I’m Eric Brodman. I’m the CEO of BFG Financial Advisors here in Lutherville, Maryland, not far from Stevenson. I’ve been at this for thirty two years and have spent a good portion of those thirty two years doing philanthropy, and planned giving and charitable giving for a number of organizations, especially Stevenson. And we’re excited to not only bring some tax ideas and some giving ideas to everybody today, but also some ways in which we can support the the university that that we call Mustang home. Right? Stevenson University. So without further ado, let’s jump in and start talking about some of these strategies. Some of these are relatively new. Tax laws changed so much.

Eric Brotman [00:01:43]:
And so if there’s a theme today, it’s that the rules are constantly changing and that the ways to give to your favorite charity have gotten a little bit more complicated, but also more numerous and more flexible. So, we’ll start with QCDs or qualified charitable donations. This is part of the secure act that passed secure act two point o that passed about five years ago that now allows donations to be made directly from IRA accounts or qualified plans, four zero one k’s, four zero three b’s, etcetera, to charitable institutions during your lifetime. There are a couple of caveats. One, you must be 70 years old. You might remember that there are required minimum distributions that apply to qualified accounts and and IRAs that the IRS essentially has said, we’ve given you a tax break all these years. We want our money now. And so those required minimum distributions used to begin at 70 for many years.

Eric Brotman [00:02:38]:
Now the current rule is 73, and that age is going up to 75 where those will begin. But the qualified charitable donations, that rule has stayed at 70 and a half. So one of the strategies Manny’s gonna talk about when we get to IRAs is ways to utilize the IRA to maximize the value of that because we’ve spent our our lives and our working careers building it. This year’s limit is a hundred and $8,000. So if you choose to make a a qualified charitable donation from your IRA or your four zero one k or four zero three b, you can do that directly to the charity. Do not make a withdrawal to yourself and then give the charity. That’s a taxable event. Now if you’re subject to required minimum distributions, the qualified charitable donation counts toward that RMD.

Eric Brotman [00:03:26]:
And that’s really important because RMDs tend to be a bit of an albatross for folks because what happens is you wind up with these these accounts that you’ve built all your life, and now you’re pulling out of the accounts. And sometimes it actually pushes you into a higher tax bracket where it creates a what’s called an IRMA, situation where you’re paying more for Medicare or other things later in life. And so utilizing QCDs for charitable giving is one of the easiest and I think most powerful ways to do giving today. If you have required distributions that are greater than a 8,000 discounts toward them. If you have required minimum distributions less than that or if you don’t have them at all because you’re still 70 to 73, you can still make distributions directly from the IRA. Talk to your custodian or your financial advisor or the firm you work with, to make sure that that gets done. And one special note, this goes on your ten forty when you file your tax returns, but there is not a line for it yet. The IRS hasn’t caught up to some of their own rules.

Eric Brotman [00:04:26]:
And so you actually have to note that on your tax return or you might accidentally pay income taxes on something that should be tax free. Before we move on, just wanted to let you know that Hannah Dennis is in the background today. So if you have questions, you can put them in the chat, the chat window over on the right of your screen. She will gladly interrupt us if there’s something specific to a given slide, or we’ll try to make time at the end for q and a. So thank you for doing that. Mandy, let’s talk a little bit about IRAs.

Manny Essien [00:04:54]:
Sure. Eric, one of the things that you touched on was Secure Act two point o. In a lot of ways Secure Act two point o created or, really innovated the space, created for a lot more opportunities as it pertains to passing on wealth, making charitable donations, but it it has also, I think, given us stuff to do, Eric. It’s partly kept us employed. And when I say that, I mean, when it comes to IRA beneficiary designations, Eric talked about spending your whole life building up your IRA, and the thought process was always that when you pass, you would leave your IRA either to your spouse or your children. Will Secure Act two point o change the rules surrounding how that can be left? Specifically, eliminating stretch IRAs when the IRA is going to anybody but your spouse. And really, you change the rules for your spouse as well, but let’s just say it’s not as advantageous for anybody else besides your spouse. If a traditional IRA is left to a beneficiary other than your spouse, then they have ten years to withdraw all of it.

Manny Essien [00:05:58]:
And when you think about it, that is one way that you are essentially distributing it, placing it back into the economy because you may be utilizing it, but also you’re paying taxes on those funds. So one of the things that Eric and I look at when we, start planning for IRA distributions is how can we, one, meet the client’s goals for charitable donations, while, two, also preserve preserving their wealth for future, essentially, future, what am I looking for here?

Eric Brotman [00:06:27]:
Generations? Future generations. There you go.

Manny Essien [00:06:29]:
Exactly. So one of the ways that you can do that is by naming a charity as the beneficiary for an IRA. Now this allows the I the charity to take on the IRA and, you know, you could utilize other, methods to leave wealth behind, for your heirs. But if you utilize this way, you can essentially give your dollar more bang for its buck. Okay? Because when those IRAs are distributed and given to your heirs, they’re likely going to pay taxes and could quickly see 50% of the value of the IRA decimated. Okay? So one of the things that I do want you guys to consider is that Roth IRAs have different rules than traditional IRAs. Specifically, leaving Roth IRAs for your heirs is actually a good idea because in this sense, they are inheriting something that because you have already paid taxes on, they will not have to pay taxes on. So Roth IRAs are different from traditional IRAs in that sense.

Manny Essien [00:07:25]:
One of the things that Eric and I look at, really, it feels like on a daily basis here are when is it ideal to do Roth IRA conversions? And that’s moving money out of the traditional IRA box and into the Roth IRA box. Paying taxes at that time, but allowing that money to sit and not be taxed again in the future. Alright. Now one of the things that you should really consider, just to kinda sum this all up here, is that leaving traditional IRA funds to heirs leaves it exposed for tax purposes. And, really, this goes for HSAs and other qualified retirement plans. Leaving funds and a Roth IRA to those heirs avoids the taxes that would have to be paid on that. And leaving IRAs to charities really allows you to have a gift, a a lasting gift that’s really a part of your estate, for some of the things that are very important to you and key to your heart.

Eric Brotman [00:08:17]:
Just to piggyback, Manny, and thank you. That’s that’s extremely thorough. The the way that IRAs get left behind and the ways that heirs have to pay taxes on them isn’t always, terrible, obviously. It depends on the tax bracket and the size of the account. But what you don’t wanna do is you don’t wanna create bracket creep for your children or grandchildren. Because if you think about it, with life expectancies today at 80 and 85 and 90 years old, you could be leaving money to your kids who are 60, who have already reached a fine a level of financial independence and a level of taxable income and and so forth. And so every single dollar that comes out of the IRA will go to that charity if you choose. Now what are the problems with that? Well, sometimes people want to leave money to their kids.

Eric Brotman [00:09:00]:
They even though they’re charitably inclined, they still want to leave money to their kids. So that brings us to the next topic, which is one of the ways to replace what’s in your IRA is to utilize life insurance so that your children and grandchildren are receiving life insurance dollars that are not income taxable, and the charity receives the IRA dollars, which would be taxable to your kids but isn’t to the charity. It’s a way to create wealth replacement. It’s also a way in certain states, Maryland being absolutely one of them, where you can reduce some of the estate or inheritance tax burdens that you leave behind too. So for wealthy families who have a a death in Maryland, both the federal and the state governments can potentially tax what you leave behind. And life insurance done right in a trust can be a very successful way to not have that apply, and it also is a permission slip to use your IRA for other things. And so, you know, my my scenario personally is I’m gonna leave my IRA to my wife if she outlives me, but if she doesn’t, it’s going to go to charity including Stevenson. True story.

Eric Brotman [00:10:05]:
And if that happens, then I know that some of those dollars won’t get taxed. Now there’s other ways to use life insurance for charitable gifts. One, you could just name a charity as the benefit as the beneficiary of your life insurance. Well, if you’re married and you and your spouse each have life insurance to protect each other and then one of you is widowed, it might be that you have life insurance if you don’t have children or if your children are in a different situation, you might not need to leave that life insurance to a human. You might want to leave it to charity. So it’s that can be very powerful. And then lastly, there are ways where you can actually make a donation of cash to your favorite charity or of stock to your favorite charity. The buy life insurance on your life as the donor.

Eric Brotman [00:10:51]:
You can essentially make the gifts as premiums which makes them tax deductible and the charity can be beneficiary. So lots of powerful ways to use life insurance during the process of of considering property to give. You know, and Chris is gonna talk a little bit about some of the needs that Stephenson has and lots of different property can be donated. You can donate cash, you can donate securities, you can donate real estate, you can donate cryptocurrency, you can donate life insurance, you can donate lots of different kinds of property. And so finding creating that donor’s intent to to make a difference at Stevenson while at the same time trying to be tax smart and be thoughtful about their their family situation is paramount. So we’ll go to one more strategy and then we’ll talk about some of the things going on on campus because it’s an exciting time, in Owings Mills. Donor advised funds are are a new way to create I don’t know what is popping up on my screen. Is that on our screen? Do you see that, Chris?

Chris Vaughan [00:11:46]:
I do see that.

Eric Brotman [00:11:47]:
I don’t know what that is, but it was not helpful. Alright. Let’s keep going. Donor advised funds are one way in order to to what’s called pool some of your giving. When Secure Act two point o passed, as Manny talked about, it changed some of the tax rules. One of the things it did is raise the standard deduction. So as you know, there’s a schedule a when you file your income tax returns federally, and the schedule a says, well, here are the things that I’m itemizing, mortgage interest or state and local taxes or medical expenses or other types of things. And because the standard deduction was raised so much, most Americans, ninety percent, don’t itemize deductions.

Eric Brotman [00:12:26]:
That means charitable gifts are no longer deductible for 90% of the population unless you do some planning first. What donor advised funds allow you to do is they allow you to make a larger gift to an account that you still control, you still get the tax deduction for the gift, and you can then distribute that to your favorite charity or charities over many years. So if you’re not filing a tax return with itemized deductions, instead of giving a gift, hypothetically, let’s say you were giving $5,000 a year to Stevenson. If you were doing that every single year, you might not be itemizing. If you took five years worth, 25,000, put it in a donor advised fund, you potentially itemize that year and Stevenson would still be able to get the 5,000 a year and so forth. So that’s one way to do it. Donor advised funds are great for donating highly appreciated securities. You know, we normally tell folks if you’re making gifts, any gift with a comma or, frankly, if you’re making lots of gifts even smaller than that and they add up, that it’s important not to just write a check and not to give cash.

Eric Brotman [00:13:28]:
Now I know Chris is gonna cringe at that. But at the end of the day, if you just write a check, you’re missing some tax opportunities. One of which is you can actually donate shares of stock or mutual funds or exchange traded funds or other things and avoid the capital gain that you might pay otherwise, or you could donate from your IRA or from a donor advised fund. It means the same to Stevenson, but it can be better tax planning for you. Lots of people have asked about, well, why don’t I create a personal family foundation? And I think that’s lovely so long as you’re prepared to donate $5,000,000 or more. Most of us are not in that situation, though if we are, Chris would love to talk to you immediately. But if we’re not in that situation, a personal foundation is expensive and it’s cumbersome and it doesn’t make sense for most families. Donor advised funds can be started with less than a thousand dollars.

Eric Brotman [00:14:15]:
You can just begin a fund and and start making donations that way. So, with that, let’s shift gears and talk about what’s going on in Owens Mills because, all of these strategies are great, but let’s talk about where the money goes and where it’s needed. Chris? Sure.

Chris Vaughan [00:14:29]:
Thank you, Eric, and thank you, Manny. So, we have a number of philanthropic priorities here at Stevenson. If you’re looking at the, the screen, annual fund is list listed first. The annual fund is basically Stephenson’s fund that pays for whatever the greatest need is at the time. We also are raising, significant, funds here, for scholarships. Many of our students have financial need, and scholarship support can help them to achieve a Stevenson education and remain at Stevenson, for all four years. One scholarship in particular that we’re raising money for, this year, we have for the past couple years, is the Rollins Luke Demeyer scholarship. It’s a unique scholarship in that it provides, support for middle income students who don’t always qualify for government support.

Chris Vaughan [00:15:27]:
Campus development is going really, really well. We opened up the, Philip a Zachary Library last, spring, and we had a campaign for that facility, and we are still raising some funds for that. We also, opened the East Campus, very recently, which is the athletic hub at Stevenson. Our current capital project is the Berman Family Performing Arts Center, and we are in the midst of a, a campaign for that facility. That is gonna have a music performance stage, a black box theater, and all of the facilities that are needed in order to run a facility like that. Our Owings Mills North Campus is nearing completion, and we developed a new quad that tie all of the academic buildings together, in that space. And also worth noting, we have a new Collard Foundation Makerspace in the, the Manning academic center. I think that that I think it’s a good update on what’s going on here on campus.

Chris Vaughan [00:16:37]:
A lot.

Manny Essien [00:16:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I’m I’d like to add to this because I think that, really, I have a personal story that’s near and dear to not only planned giving, but also Stevenson specifically. I was a Stevenson alum. I like to go back quite often, and really that’s because I feel, number one, amazing doing it, but also, to a degree indebted to Stevenson, for a lot of the success that I have found so far in my life. While I was at Stevenson, I was essentially the beneficiary of a pretty sizable scholarship that allowed me to not only finish my education, but also allowed me to do it without having to worry about what where the next payment was going to come from or taking on, you know, extreme loans. The process of getting the scholarship was actually quite quite, well, I won’t say easy, but I I did, you know, have to write a couple of essays. I had a couple of interviews, but, ultimately, that led me to speaking at the honors luncheon, where I actually met this guy, Eric.

Manny Essien [00:17:36]:
Meeting Eric allowed me to not only be exposed to the financial planning kinda, industry, but also has allowed me to think about what’s most important to me now that I am in the position to give back. And one of the things that Eric has spearheaded here at BFG is, having all of the alum from Stevenson, which there’s about about one third, about one third of the office. We have started, a fund here to give annually to make sure that people that kinda came out like us, came through like us, don’t have to worry about some of the things, that you would worry about if you didn’t, you know, receive scholarships.

Eric Brotman [00:18:14]:
So to talk a little bit about and thank you for for sharing that story. One of the things, the scholarship program, I remember when Stevenson Partners was just starting, and there were, I think, four companies, and we decided to to start raising money for what’s called a gap scholarship. And the reason there’s a gap is that financial aid offers are level for four years, but as we all know, tuition isn’t. And so by the time you get to your junior or senior year, that can be a a gap that could prevent someone from staying in school. And the worst possible outcome here is that you spend two years starting your education potentially with some student loans, and then you’re unable to finish over what what in the the the donation world, in the philanthropy world is not a huge amount of money, but in the student world is an enormous thing. And so I think we now have over 200 Stephenson Partners. Is that number right?

Manny Essien [00:18:59]:
Is it 200? Yeah. 200, close to two seventy five at this point in time. Holy cow.

Eric Brotman [00:19:03]:
I think I I remember when they were four, so we’ve come a long way. But it’s a way to create, a perpetual giving opportunity and scholarships in your name. And, you know, Manny and, the other Stevenson alums here in the office are are are donors. I match it because it’s important to me and then the company also participates. Now, Chris, the annual fund is something we never wanna cannibalize. You know, the annual fund is partly in the operating budget for the school and it helps keep tuition where it is because in the absence of an annual fund, tuition would be higher for for everyone. You wanna talk a little bit about how that annual fund, how important that is to the school and why we don’t wanna neglect it even when we’re talking about Sure. Planned giving.

Chris Vaughan [00:19:46]:
Well, as you said, the, the annual fund funds or helps to fund the overall university budget. So, if we can raise money for scholarships, then we don’t have to tap into the annual fund, the fund scholarships. It helps to keep tuition low. Annual fund pays for, really, as I said, anything that is of the greatest need at the time. It can help pay the electric bill. It can help pay for, repairs. Really, what you name it. It’s an unrestricted fund that allows the university to, keep its operating expenses as low as possible.

Chris Vaughan [00:20:22]:
I also would like to touch on, scholarships again to let you know that there are a variety of different ways to make a scholarship gift here at Stevenson. We have the general scholarship fund, which the financial aid office uses to try to, help students as broadly as possible, afford a Stevenson education. A number of folks will, elect to start a named in excuse me, a named annual scholarship where they make a scholarship each year of a thousand dollars or more, and their name is attached to it. And you can work with us on how the criteria for for that that sort of an award. There’s also, endowed scholarships. Endowed scholarships will last in perpetuity. An endowed fund starts at $50,000 and go up certainly, from there. But, we use the income that is generated off of that endowment fund to make awards each year.

Chris Vaughan [00:21:22]:
And, again, that once that’s established, that that’s that’s going for for a very long time. And I also mentioned the Rollins Luther Meyer scholarship. That’s a new fund that we’ve started in the past few years to help middle income students who don’t often receive the financial support that some of our students qualify for.

Eric Brotman [00:21:42]:
So so for people who are excited to support Stevenson, there is unrestricted giving and restricted giving. Unrestricted is an annual fund, highest best use. Some people feel strongly that they want their gift to go to academics or athletics or arts or other various things. Some I suspect you’re not turning those down either.

Chris Vaughan [00:21:59]:
No. No. No. We, we have donors who support basically every different area here at the university. Whatever their passion is, we have a place to to work with you.

Eric Brotman [00:22:10]:
Great. And there are a couple of different societies. Giving circles, there’s the Nick Muller Society. I I think there’s the Oaks. The is it the Great Oaks? Or

Chris Vaughan [00:22:17]:
Great Oaks Society is our planned gift donor society. The Nick Muller Society is our, leadership, annual giving society. We also have the nineteen forty seven society, which recognizes consistent, donors year year over

Eric Brotman [00:22:35]:
year. Got it. I I don’t remember 1947. I I know you think I was here, but I I wasn’t.

Manny Essien [00:22:40]:
I think you have to, you have to look at your birth certificate again.

Eric Brotman [00:22:45]:
Thank you, Eddie. I appreciate that.

Manny Essien [00:22:47]:
No problem.

Eric Brotman [00:22:47]:
So, anything else you wanna add, Chris, in terms of in terms of just overall what’s happening on campus or or where there’s some some need?

Chris Vaughan [00:22:55]:
Sure. Well, you know, I just wanna, say that if people are interested in supporting any of these opportunities, please reach out to me. I think my contact information might be on one of the slides, but in case we need share it. No. I’m just

Eric Brotman [00:23:08]:
We will definitely share it. Sure.

Chris Vaughan [00:23:09]:
You’ll get my email address out there and my phone number. Please don’t hesitate to give me a call. I’m happy to to talk, at any time. Just please reach out.

Eric Brotman [00:23:19]:
So let’s do a little bit of a recap, because we’ve we’ve covered an enormous amount of ground. I think, of course, these are school colors.

Manny Essien [00:23:26]:
Yes.

Eric Brotman [00:23:26]:
But but I think we’ve covered an enormous amount of ground of different ways to make gifts and different reasons why they’re important to the school. And and what’s nice about this is every single donor is unique. And your objective is as a family or as an individual or as a company or as a a foundation or all unique. And there’s so many different ways to get involved. I I will tell you that one of the reasons that I got involved with the scholarship program was because I was on a hard hat tour when the stadium was being built. I don’t even know if you know this story, but I was on a hard hat tour, and I was looking at ways to support the stadium because I thought, how in the world is Sleepy Villa Julie College, which I remember as a a very small, wonderful place, but a very small place that had become this university built out of the ether over the last two decades amazingly, was suddenly gonna have a football program. And and you would say it’s a decent football program, I guess, because you

Manny Essien [00:24:18]:
Well, I have I have my my allegiance. I’ve been playing football at Stevenson for a couple years. I’ve won a couple of games.

Eric Brotman [00:24:24]:
So at the at the end of the day, it was it was exciting, but it didn’t feel like my passion. As much as I love going to the games, I wanted to do something that would keep kids in school. And so that’s where this came from. I’m pleased to have been able to do this now for a number of years and to make a difference. I will tell folks that all of these strategies, discuss them with your financial adviser, discuss them with your spouse or your family. Donor advised funds, for example, are a great way to include your kids or even grandkids in your philanthropy where you can create a fund and then discuss with your with your heirs or other family members how you’d like to to donate from that fund, then it becomes a real important conversation about the reason to give back. All of these different strategies, your CPA, your financial advisor can help. We are gonna share Chris’s contact information.

Eric Brotman [00:25:16]:
We’re also gonna share ours for anybody who would like to discuss that with us. Our you know, we we sometimes get asked because we do a lot of these kinds of programs. We get asked what is our affiliation at BFG with Stevenson. The short answer is professionally, there isn’t one. We have no, we have no financial relationship with Stevenson except that we’re donors and we’re fans. So, so that is something that we felt strongly about. Manny’s an alum. I’ve been a trustee.

Eric Brotman [00:25:42]:
It’s an important place to to both of us. And so, if anyone would like to talk about ways to support Stevenson or ways to do other philanthropy, we’re happy to chat with you and and to plug you in as best we can.

Manny Essien [00:25:54]:
Absolutely.

Eric Brotman [00:25:55]:
So with that, here is this is Chris’s information. That’s where to find him. That’s his email address, cvaughn@stevenson.edu. He’s a resource, and he has a terrific team. They know exactly how to plug you into different areas. They’re happy to to take you on a tour to see. If you haven’t been to campus in even five years, you’re missing Incredible. An enormous renaissance.

Eric Brotman [00:26:19]:
It’s an amazing place. It’s a special place. I look forward to being there, in fact, later today. So it’s a it’s a special place. That’s how to get in touch with Chris. And if you’d like to get in touch with myself or with Manny, our information is on screen. We’re happy to do it. We’re happy to help you help your favorite causes, and, of course, we hope Stevenson is one of them.

Eric Brotman [00:26:38]:
Hannah, are there any questions in the in the chat box? We we finished up with plenty of time. So if there’s some questions, we’re happy to take them.

Hannah Dennis [00:26:45]:
Sure. I do have a couple questions. Oh, good. First one being, are there any upcoming events at Stevenson, focused on philanthropy?

Chris Vaughan [00:26:54]:
Yes. There are. Thank you. The our annual day of giving is April 24 into the twenty fifth. It spans from noon on the twenty fourth into the to noon on the twenty fifth. Our theme is give to what you love. So, there are options out there on the, the web page for that. There’ll be a lot of emails going out to all of our constituents, letting them know where to go that day to make a gift.

Chris Vaughan [00:27:26]:
And certainly, you can designate to any area here on campus that that you’re passionate in.

Eric Brotman [00:27:31]:
Is is day of giving something where you’re looking really for huge participation? You’re looking for lots of people to get plugged in and get excited primarily?

Chris Vaughan [00:27:39]:
Yeah. That’s the idea. We’re we’re we’re shooting for, I think it’s a a 300 donors that day

Eric Brotman [00:27:44]:
Okay.

Chris Vaughan [00:27:45]:
To give. And, you know, every every gift counts that day. It it all helps us to to get what what we need to do, this year. So anything you can do to support us that day would be very much appreciated. April.

Eric Brotman [00:28:01]:
April ’20 ‘4 and ’20 ‘5, day of giving. Hannah, anything else?

Hannah Dennis [00:28:06]:
Yep. I do have another question. What assets should I use to set up a charitable gift such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds? What’s the smartest way to go about that?

Eric Brotman [00:28:17]:
Chris, I think that one might be for us.

Chris Vaughan [00:28:19]:
I think you’re right. Yeah.

Eric Brotman [00:28:20]:
We’re happy to we’re happy to take that. In general, if you’re giving assets that are not qualified charitable distributions and you’re giving them from nonretirement accounts, you wanna try and give, assets that are appreciated where you have an unrealized capital gain baked in. So for example, you buy x y z stock and and you buy it for a hundred dollars and now it’s worth a thousand dollars. If you were to sell that stock, you’d have to pay capital gains tax on the $900 difference. If you donate the stock in kind to Stevenson, you get the full thousand dollar gift. Stevenson can sell the stock and not pay taxes as a five zero one c three charity, and everybody wins except the IRS, which is always something that makes me happy. Any any other thoughts on that? No.

Manny Essien [00:29:05]:
I think you you hit the nail right on the other. Just just so

Eric Brotman [00:29:08]:
you all know, there are so many other ways to donate property. When we talk about that, it it can be are things called split interest gifts. You can donate there’s so many different ways to do it, but you can donate your home while you live in it and still live in it the rest of your life and then have it when you pass go to charity. And there’s all kinds of tax benefits to doing that kind of thing. So real estate’s an option. In certain cases, business interest can be an option. There are limits to what you can and can’t do. But there’s so many creative ways.

Eric Brotman [00:29:38]:
So many of us have more bandwidth than we realize if we can reduce our tax bill and and provide some philanthropy. So, the short answer, Hannah, is anything appreciated. If you have a loss in your portfolio, you don’t wanna donate in kind. You can sell a security, take the tax loss, and then donate the proceeds. That’s still fine. But in general, you wanna look for things that you’ve owned a long time potentially that have grown a lot. Maybe you inherited a stock fifteen years ago and it’s been paying you dividends, but now it’s it’s grown to a ridiculous point And it it becomes a perfect gift that you can that you can leave the charity right away if if you wanna see that happen. What else?

Hannah Dennis [00:30:21]:
Great. I have another one. If I’m an alumni, how can I become more involved with my alma mater?

Eric Brotman [00:30:29]:
Oh. I could I could run with that. We’ll let Chris go first. You go second. Sure.

Chris Vaughan [00:30:33]:
Right. Sure. There are many ways to to get involved here at Stevenson. Get involved with the alumni association. If you go to our website, there there’s plenty of information on how to do that. You can reach out to me, and I can connect you to the right folks to, to get involved with that. Come to an event. We have a lot of sporting events.

Chris Vaughan [00:30:55]:
Come to to come to a game. Come to, Stevenson night at Camden Yards, which is coming up, in September. Again, if you go to our website or you reach out to me, I can get you a full list of all the alumni events that are coming up. Homecoming is a great one. That’s in the fall. We have a great alumni turnout at that. You’ll get to reconnect with all of your former classmates. And, again, come come come to a game.

Chris Vaughan [00:31:21]:
You know, come to a football game, come to a lacrosse game, a soccer game, track meet, baseball game. Our new, East Campus, as I said before, is our athletics hub. We have, four practice fields there. One, field is lined for field hockey. It’s a turf field with a track, so our our track team spends a lot of time up there. Come out and check them out. We have a new baseball softball complex up there too. So lots of ways to get involved, and we would love to have as many folks as possible back here with us.

Eric Brotman [00:31:52]:
I know you’ve got some other suggestions. I I would like like to throw in real fast that I think there should be an annual alumni football game where the alums play play the current team. I don’t know. I would like to watch that happen. It would be like carnage. Yeah. I’m not sure. They keep up.

Chris Vaughan [00:32:05]:
I think our insurance folks might feel a little concerned

Eric Brotman [00:32:07]:
about that. You’re probably right. So what are some other ways to get involved? Plug in.

Manny Essien [00:32:11]:
So as an alum, I I kinda wanna highlight on participation and not necessarily fundraising. I think one of the biggest things that you can give one of the greatest things that you can give is time. And one of the first ways that I got involved with Stevenson after leaving campus was just going back and talking to the students. There’s a mentorship program that I’ve been able to get involved in. There’s keeping in touch with, the people that you graduated with, but your professors as well. There are things that you learn in the outside world that professors can utilize for their curriculum, that they can utilize for talking to classes. And, honestly, I think, one of the greatest ways you can get involved with Stevenson as an alum is going back and giving your time.

Eric Brotman [00:32:52]:
And I’ll throw one last in. As a non alum, but but an interested party, interview on campus. Do the do the job fairs, hire hire other Mustangs because it it first of all, I I’ve never known a university that has created graduates who are more ready to work and more, enthusiastic. I I truly, and that’s why that is our number one spot for when we when we look for for candidates for any job, in our office, it’s the first place we go because it’s it’s there’s grit. And I’ll take grit all day long over, some of what some of the other schools are putting out right now, which I’m not gonna disparage anyone, but it’s not grit. So we’ll go there. Hannah, anything else in the chat box? This is sort of a last, last call.

Hannah Dennis [00:33:38]:
Yep. I’ve got one more, question. I think it’s the most important one. Where do I start if I want to give to Stevenson specifically?

Chris Vaughan [00:33:48]:
Give me a call. Send me an email. Go to our website. You’ll see the give link right at the top of the page if you wanna make an online gift, but please send me an email or give me a call. I’m happy to help you out.

Eric Brotman [00:34:01]:
If you’re local, take the tour.

Chris Vaughan [00:34:04]:
Yes. Please.

Eric Brotman [00:34:05]:
You won’t you won’t recognize it. Whether you’ve been out five years or ten or fifteen, it is unrecognizably sensational, truly sensational. The athletic facilities, the academic facilities, the new arts facility with the performing arts theater, the campus itself is in extraordinary shape and, you know, a lot of you remember, a lot of you alums remember days before there were dorms, before there was, you know, on campus housing, before there was the dining halls and some of the different things and it’s just amazing. The business school is a remarkable place, and and, you know, we do hire from there quite a bit. So, take the tour. Take Chris up on it. Like, let let

Chris Vaughan [00:34:43]:
me Give me a call. I’ll give you Use

Eric Brotman [00:34:45]:
that shoe leather. Make him walk. Make him walk the campus, and if you don’t wanna walk, he’ll take you in a golf cart or something. But but but make him work for it.

Chris Vaughan [00:34:53]:
Thank you.

Eric Brotman [00:34:54]:
Yeah. Of course. Anything else, Anna? I think we’re wrapped up.

Hannah Dennis [00:34:57]:
Nope. That is it on my end.

Eric Brotman [00:34:59]:
Well, Chris, thank you for for having us.

Chris Vaughan [00:35:02]:
I I wanna say thank you, Eric, and thank you, Manny. We’re profoundly grateful for your support, your generosity, your leadership, and thank you for this opportunity.

Eric Brotman [00:35:11]:
Well, it it’s our pleasure, and there’s not much we wouldn’t do to support the school and and, to help you in in doing the right the the right fundraising. And if if there are folks who wanna talk about ways to do this, there’s some creative strategies. You don’t have to be an expert on this. You just have to be interested in making a difference. And between Chris and Manny and myself, we’ll we’ll help you find ways that work for you where you’re comfortable, and we’d be honored. So thank you all for attending today. Let’s satisfy all the lawyers. Look at that.

Eric Brotman [00:35:40]:
There you go. The lawyers are satisfied. Chris, thank you for doing this with us. It was a pleasure, and, we’ll be seeing you soon.

Chris Vaughan [00:35:48]:
Take care. Bye bye.