Though the peak charitable giving season occurs in the fourth quarter, many financial advisors find that it is ideal to engage their clients in the charitable planning conversation at other times of year.
Some have the conversation soon after the clients make their year-end contributions or during or after the spring tax season.
Regardless of when it happens, advisors are increasingly finding that having the discussion is beneficial to them and their clients. Most clients welcome the conversation, since they and the charities they support benefit as well.
And advisors who previously had not incorporated the charitable conversation realized that not doing so hurt their practice, and it hurt their clients too.
Advisors who never or only occasionally have conversations about charitable giving with their clients report facing some of these negative consequences:
- They can miss an opportunity to meet, engage and retain the client’s spouse and children as clients after the death of the client(s), especially if the other family members are philanthropic.
- Advisors can lose potential business to another advisor who does talk about charitable planning with prospects. One Florida advisor shared that “I realized that if I don’t talk about it, another advisor will.”
- Clients could move to a different advisor or firm if philanthropy is important to them and the other advisor already works with a philanthropic friend of the client.