BNY Mellon Wealth Management's annual charitable gift report, released Thursday, discusses potential opportunities for donors to better realize financial and tax benefits when they fund charitable gift annuities.
The report also shows how nonprofit groups can navigate the threat of "underwater gifts" — when a gift annuity's assets are exhausted before the death of the final income beneficiary.
According to the report, data for nonprofit organizations revealed that 84% of CGAs established in 2020 were funded with cash assets and only 16% were funded with non-cash assets.
BNY Mellon Wealth Management noted that given the benefits of funding gift annuities with securities that have appreciated in value, donors are overlooking this significant opportunity. They may be forgoing significant tax benefits by funding five- or six-figure gift annuities with cash, it said.
The report also showed that 56% of the nonprofit organizations that issue gift annuities had at least one "underwater gift," which can pose serious financial, regulatory and reputational risks if not managed proactively.
Nearly half of educational institutions had at least one underwater annuity in 2020, followed by a quarter of social service groups and a fifth of faith-based/religious ones.
The report said nonprofits must identify and manage current underwater gifts, as well as those that are projected to go underwater, to stay on top of the financial risks inherent in issuing gift annuities, thereby protecting their reputations as responsible stewards and cultivating future gifts from their donors.
"The events of 2020 had a far-reaching financial impact on many nonprofit organizations tasked with meeting a greater demand for services and a decline in revenues due to COVID-related lockdowns," Crystal Thompkins, head of philanthropic solutions at BNY Mellon Wealth Management, said in a statement.
"Many of these organizations also experienced a decline in new life income gift funding in 2020. Against this backdrop, we proactively worked with clients to rethink how they could realize income and tax benefits from charitable giving, along with helping nonprofit clients to manage risk in their portfolios."
BNY Mellon Wealth Management's report provides analytics and observations on charitable gift annuity and charitable remainder trust activity for more than 100 educational, faith-based, social services/other, cultural and health care organizations in calendar year 2020.
