July 12th, 2011
Let me tell you the real story of the woman who married Prince Charming.
During their forty years together, he enjoyed a lucrative and secure career. She never asked about their assets or how much they spent or saved. They had kids and lived well.
You can see where this is headed.
The prince died. A huge chunk of his money went to pay various taxes, most of which could have been avoided if he had only managed some basic financial planning. The kids got nothing. The wife had to sell the house. The fairy tale ended.
This isn’t an old wives’ tale, either. Women need to have money in their own name.
While younger working women are moving, inch by inch, toward a tripod model—his money, our money, my money—thousands of women are still leaving their checkbooks at the altar, even when they bring home big salaries.
One nationwide survey found that when couples argue about money, men see it as an issue of “trust.” By contrast, women cite issues of “power and control.” Presumably, lots of women would rather not press that marital hot button. Yet when they do assert their financial independence, women are often surprised by the positive changes in their sense of self and the marriage’s dynamics.
If everything you own and all family bank accounts are jointly held (or worse, in his name alone), consider these commonplace scenarios. Then think about getting your own accounts.
• You ought to be able to buy a gift without it being obvious how much you spent.
• You may need access to cash fast for many reasons, including the tragic ones, when joint accounts can be frozen for a good, long while. Typically, you should have three months’ worth of household and living expenses in an emergency bank account of your own.
• When loans and credit cards are all in your spouse’s name, credit agencies will likely score his record while yours turns inactive. Even if you established a good credit history in your own name before marriage, that rating can lapse in less than a year. That means you’ll have difficulty getting credit in your name because there’s no current track record. In addition, if he has a habit of late payments or defaults entirely, it’s your credit rating that will also suffer.
• It can take several years for bad credit info to disappear from the records.
• Sometimes you just want to make your own decisions. You should be able to spend money on what you want without asking for permission or forgiveness.
• And one more critical byte of advice: Make sure you always know current computer passwords for joint investment and bank accounts.
Tags: boomers, economic rights, families, family giving, financial planners, Gen X, Gen Y, generational, investing, money, money management, professional women, social change, taxes, wealth, wealth managers, WOMEN
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March 18th, 2011
The changing status of women is fueling and informing philanthropy.
With growing earning power, expanding professional skills, profitable businesses of their own, and deepening control over family trusts and inheritances, women now have the means and the will to invest in philanthropic change.
In fact, over the past few decades, women have been making more decisions about greater wealth every year.
Consider: The latest IRS figures, from August 2008, report that 43% of the nation’s top 2.7 million wealth holders are women (top wealth is defined as $1.5 million in assets).
Assets of those nearly 1.2 million women were valued at $4.6 trillion, or about 42% of the total $11 trillion of top wealth holders.
In addition, women control nearly half — or 48% — of estates worth more than $5 million.
They account for more than an astonishing 80% of consumer spending, to the tune of $3.7 trillion.
And over 10 million firms are owned 75% or more by women, employing nearly 23 million people and generating $3 trillion in revenue, as of 2009.
Then there’s women’s longevity compared to men. On average, women live about five years longer than men. Since women tend to marry men older than themselves and they also remarry less frequently after a spouse dies, women aged 65 and older are now three times more likely to be widowed than their male counterparts.
All of this puts women in line to control inherited money from husbands and families and, of course, with more education and leadership positions in the society, increasingly likely to earn significant income themselves.
As a result, over the past several years, significant numbers of women donors and advisors have joined philanthropy’s ranks. Women have moved into the mainstream of philanthropic endeavor.
Across the board, women’s deepening engagement in philanthropy is having an impact on social policy, the choice of grant awards, program development, nonprofit management, fundraising, and even grantor-grantee relationships.
That adds up to unparalleled potential as more and more women eye their legacies.
Has your organization talked to a woman donor in the last month?
Tags: charities, CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY, donors, family foundations, family giving, finances, FOUNDATIONS, FUNDRAISING, generational, Giving, impact, money, philanthropy, social change, SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP, wealth, wealth managers, women in the news
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March 6th, 2011
Increasingly, as donors accompany financial backing with hands-on involvement, they are joining forces with organizations to help leverage contributions and advance the mission. But getting to an honest, effective donor-charity alliance built on trust and understanding takes time and compromise. Such partnerships often throw up tensions and the strain typically stems from misunderstanding the other side’s motivations.
Dependent on contributions and grants, development officers and fundraisers may put a rosy gloss on programs and outcomes and may skip past some real challenges and difficulties. Unsurprisingly, this can offend donors, who may know better. Or, the cheery overview may cause donors to feel the organization is less than competent or, worse, hiding something. No one wins in such circumstances, and, thankfully, such happy talk is fading from the field.
More frequently these days, charities simply cannot command the specific details that directly address donor questions – for a variety of reasons. Many nonprofits, even large, established institutions, don’t define goals. Yet choosing goals is what connects you to assessing results. Such organizations have trouble figuring out what’s working and what’s not. Next, there’s no accepted way to measure charitable impact, like business profits or ROI. Then, too, measuring impact depends on the resources you have, which we all know are tighter than ever. So that requires weighing social good versus grants out the door. Another challenge is that one organization rarely is the sole funder for a program. And if a nonprofit funds only 35% or 20% of a project, how do you measure your particular impact?
Painting this complex picture to expectant donors who are considering contributing $1,000 or $1 million isn’t easy, particularly when the donation will only flow if the nonprofit can clearly explain how the money will be spent and the precise result it will have.
What you need is lots of goodwill and honest conversation—as well as ongoing donor education. Yes, nonprofit must devote time and resources to donor education, not just donor cultivation, no matter what).
On the other side, once the check is cashed, donors can turn intrusive or overbearing, feeling they’ve purchased the right to express opinions and direct decisions. While they certainly should have a voice, too many donors don’t take the time to become knowledgeable before weighing in. They also may not bother to tap the nonprofit’s expertise to learn where or how they can be most useful. Before wading in, make sure you know as much as you can.
Last, there’s the troublesome challenge of novelty. Entrenched, familiar social problems aren’t nearly as interesting as fresh, trendy ones. Donors so like to support new ideas, but we already have too many nonprofits to sustain. When an organization shifts gears or missions to respond to a big donor’s interest in the Next New Thing, we lose ability and momentum in meeting ongoing challenges. Organizations then end up spending more time and resources on fundraising than on delivering on their programs. Donors need to help organizations succeed. Nonprofit need to be straight up and transparent with donors.
Imagine that impact.
Tags: development, donors, families, family foundations, finances, FOUNDATIONS, Giving, investing, nonprofits, organizations, social change, SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP, social problems, third sector, wealth
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