Not long ago, I had met a nonprofit consultant at a “consultant’s meeting” who specializes in turning around organizations that are in dire straits, often due to the economy and other issues. Turns out she is also specializing in philanthropy consulting as it is something that folks who are forming foundations and organizations to give back desperately need. Okay so, let’s talk.
I mean does it make sense to hire a consultant to help you with your philanthropic desires? Well, I certainly believe it does, in fact, I did indeed pass this philanthropy/nonprofit consultant’s business card to a Financial Planner acquaintance who deals with high net worth individual’s who often find the desire to launch philanthropic endeavors.
Indeed, over the years, I’ve discussed this issue at length, seeing the need and how money flows to nonprofits, and later due to the changes in tax laws, as the government wants to go after the wealthy and have them pay more in taxes, thus, limiting at least some of their donations.
So, I do see this as a growing niche for this consultant because of our demographic shifts and so many folks with few offspring or none as many have parlayed wealth from family and their own accomplishments – all of whom are wise enough to understand they can’t take it with them.
In case you haven’t been up on the news, I did read in the WSJ, that Richard Branson had joined with Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates in his philanthropic pledge and stated he would be making the rounds to get others on board as well, I thought that was a nice PR touch and a positive for the world, not to mention curtailing some of this insanity of class-warfare permeating our society in the present.
Then the very next day a billionaire Russian tycoon joined the pledge (cite: “Russian Tycoon Joins Gates Giving Pledge,” What I am trying to say is that giving money away is easy, but doing it right is one of the most difficult things there is. There are far too many people out to get a piece of it or take the grant money and build a nice little salary and profession spending all that money on their own personal wants.
It’s hard to know what’s what and make sure the money is going to the right places. Meanwhile, the rules are tightening up, so too are the tax laws, making things even more difficult. Suffice it to say, you can’t do it alone if you want to do it right. Please consider all this and think about it.
Author Bio:- Ajay Dalal is a content writer and a copywriter who specializes in writing marketing blog Technology and sales pages. He often writes for Dricki and explores new technologies to share his knowledge through writing.