Kresha
Your clients rely on your guidance to make important financial decisions. When it comes to charitable giving, we can partner with you to simplify their giving and amplify their impact.
But don’t just take our word for it. Hear from professionals in the field like Sharon R. Kresha, Partner at Baird Holm LLP.
She has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America® since 2001 for her work in Trusts and Estates and since 2011 for her work in Litigation – Trusts and Estates. In 2011 and 2020, Sharon was designated by Best Lawyers as the Trusts and Estates Lawyer of the Year and in 2021 as the Best Lawyers’ as the Litigation – Trusts and Estates Lawyer of the Year in Omaha.
How have your clients utilized OCF in their plans?
Opening and using a Donor Advised Fund (DAF) with the Omaha Community Foundation (OCF) is one of the most frequent ways OCF is a part of our clients’ charitable giving. An OCF DAF makes giving easy by tracking grants requested and fulfilled throughout the years. By reviewing giving history, the focus of a client’s charitable giving can become clearer, which, in turn, can assist a client in the direction of future giving.
A DAF allows a client to budget his/her giving by making one or more larger donations to the account at one time during the year and allowing smaller grant requests to be made at the clients’ convenience.
The Donor Services professionals at OCF will help with an initial draft of a DAF account agreement to meet the client’s needs, which I can then review and tweak. This makes establishing the account easier and more efficient to get the account up and running.
A Charitable Checkbook® account is in some respects a version of a DAF that can be established with a smaller donation and can get a client familiar with the system of requesting grants and tracking and budgeting charitable giving.
For your clients with charitable interests, what makes OCF a good partner to facilitate giving goals?
The organization and advisory services offered by OCF to family members establishing a family foundation can be invaluable in organizing and facilitating grantmaking by the foundation. OCF’s knowledge acquired by assisting other foundations can make managing a newly created foundation less daunting and manageable.
A focused giving fund maintained by OCF is an easy way for a client who wants to benefit the Omaha community as a whole but would rather use the evaluation, knowledge and expertise of the OCF professionals to allocate funds to deserving local charities. The funds include Community Interest Funds, which benefit members of the community with strategic grants to historically underserved populations. The Fund for Omaha is a grant program that seeks to amplify the voices of Black, Indigenous, and people of color.
How can advisors prompt clients to include their children or next generations in their charitable giving?
Encouraging clients, when they are in the process of making gifts or bequests to children through trusts or other structures, to allow the children under the terms of those documents to appoint or distribute assets to charity is one way to encourage children to consider charitable giving. Of course, the client setting a visible example to the younger generation of charitable giving may also be the most powerful way to encourage the next generation to give.