Where Charity Meets Checkbooks

Sometimes even the most charitable among us just can't get out of their own way.

"It's a world that often doesn't work together," Charles Hammerman said Tuesday at The Inn at Fox Hollow in Woodbury. "The blind and the visually impaired fight and the politician says, 'When you guys figure this out get back to me.'"

In the for-profit world such factions may choose to merge instead of spar. Thinking of charity from a more businesslike mindset was on the docket at Tuesday's think-tank luncheon sponsored by Syosset's Center for Wealth Preservation. Hammerman, president and CEO of the Disability Opportunity Fund, was joined by Jamie Fahey, vice president of program development for Easter Seals New York; Tony Martignetti, managing director of Martignetti Planned Giving Advisors; and Michael Smith, executive director of Plainview's Association for Children with Down Syndrome. 

Smith noted that years ago he wouldn't have been considered qualified for the position he currently holds because his background is business and not counseling. But with cutbacks from federal resources a cruel fact of life, his skills are as appreciated as ever.

"The [charity] boards have said that if you don't run it like a business, you won't be around to carry out your mission," Smith said.

Part of carrying out that mission is a more nuanced philosophy toward fundraising. Many organizations are holding their own in standard year-to-year donations but aren't building the long-term gift-planning that secures their futures. Martignetti laid out a plethora of options for charities to offer to donors: using life insurance to replace wealth so large gifts can be bequeathed without shutting out family members; suggesting direct payments from IRA funds so groups aren't always waiting for a donor's passing; even a properly drafted supplemental needs trust so that leftover funds from special-needs individuals who die can go to the organization that served them.

"More of the organizations calling me regret that they didn't start planned giving," Martignetti said.    

Moderating the discussion was Jeffrey Silverman, director of the Center for Wealth Preservation's Special Needs Planning Center. With developmental disability issues like autism on the rise, specific financial advice for those with unique requirements is a growing field--regardless of how finicky the economy is.

"We really have moved the needle for change," Hammerman said, "in good times and in bad."