CATEGORY

Viken Mikaelian

Viken Mikaelian founded PlannedGiving.com in 1998 and has spent nearly three decades advising and training nonprofit professionals responsible for billions in charitable gifts. He has presented at over 500 fundraising conferences and is widely published on planned giving strategy. Viken is the publisher of GIVING Magazine and founder of Philanthropy.org.
Couple on beach watching sunset
Charitable IRA Rollover
Viken Mikaelian

IRA Qualified Charitable Distributions

Sometimes the IRA Qualified Charitable distribution is referred to as an IRA Rollover gift. This is a sloppy and misleading term, because an IRA Rollover is another distinct process. Better to use the term IRA Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD).

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AI and Intelligence
Self Improvement & Career
Viken Mikaelian

Is AI Dumbing Us Down?

AI is smart enough to discover names of people in your organization. Legitimate-looking emails come in with the line, “see attachment” — which, when opened, launches malware. Others request sensitive business information or for you to fill out an RFP behind a password. I wrote back to one such bot, and it responded so convincingly I almost fell for it. Be very careful — two friends lost between $4k and $7K at work through such an attack. Only one was reimbursed.

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Compass With Needle Pointing Word Vision
Planned Giving Marketing
Viken Mikaelian

The Power of Endowments

An endowment sends a motivating message to the world, as well as to your board, staff and donors. It says your organization is going to be here for the long run. It creates respect, trust, authority.

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Life saver in ocean floating
Planned Giving Marketing
Viken Mikaelian

Nonprofits Did Not Do Well Last Year

2023 was another tough year in the nonprofit industry. Although all the numbers aren’t in yet, it’s on track to be on par with 2022 — perhaps worse. And what’s even more concerning is that this seems to be part of a larger downward trend.

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A picture of a magnifying glass focused on a toy wooden building, to illustrate a plannedgiving.com post encouraging nonprofits to accept gifts of real estate.
Planned Giving Marketing
Viken Mikaelian

Accept Real Estate: Risk Free

Is Your Nonprofit Accepting One of the Most Powerful Gift Types? If you’re not accepting gifts of real estate, you’re missing out on a very large untapped donation market. Consider this: While most nonprofits focus on cash gifts, that cash comprises less than 10% of America’s wealth. Meanwhile, about 43% of the nation’s wealth is held in real estate … yet only 3% of that goes toward charity. That means if the Great Wealth Transfer hits its projected $60 trillion+ mark

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Prompting people to consider their mortality is not easy, but these conversations are deep and important. Everyone needs an estate plan.
Planned Giving Marketing
Viken Mikaelian

Planning for Mortality

I’ll never forget the first time my wife and I met with our lawyer to create our estate plans. When do you pull the plug if a partner is terminally ill? What happens if we both die in an accident at the same time? Who do we trust to be an executor? It was, in many ways, a grim task, and I could see why so many people put it off.

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Future opportunity
Sustainability
Viken Mikaelian

Planned Giving is “Hot” these Days

As more uncertainty rattles the markets and the economic downturn deepens, donations will dry up. Even your most consistent donors will reevaluate their charitable giving as the threat of a recession looms. And the Wall Street roller-coaster will affect stocks as well as cash.

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Giving Magazine, Karen Alonso on Cover, United Way Las Vegas, AFP Chapter President

Giving Magazine

For those who drive change — not watch it. Join the top 1%.