A Word of Welcome
Thank you for your interest in Evergreen Planned Giving, LLC, which was established by consultant Bill Zook in 2016. Evergreen offers planned giving and endowment consulting services not only to organizations engaged in all sorts of charitable activities, but also to individuals, couples, and families, along with lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, and members of other professions.
A Word About Planned Giving
As its name suggests, planned giving is philanthropy resulting from a planning process that takes into account a donor’s personal and financial objectives, as well as his or her charitable objectives. From a charity’s standpoint, planned giving is a special type of fundraising. From a donor’s standpoint, it is an element of one’s overall estate plan, with estate planning understood to entail not just determining what becomes of one’s “stuff” when one dies, but also doing the utmost to maximize one’s own well being while living.
In practical terms, planned gifts draw upon assets – rather than upon income – and are made to charities a donor holds in the highest regard. The very best planned gift, then, comes from the heart, with the head figuring out when the gift will be made, its size, the particular assets to be used, and the overall structure.
Most planned gifts are deferred, in that their charitable impact is delayed for some period of time. That being said, it is also possible for a planned gift to have an immediate impact. Likewise, a planned gift can be either revocable or irrevocable.
The Interplay Between Planned Giving and Endowments
Traditionally, there is a close link between planned gifts and institutional endowments (or similar arrangements that function much like an endowment). Indeed, it’s not surprising for a donor to want assets acquired over the long run – whether through work, savings, investment, inheritance, or some combination – to benefit charity over the long run, perhaps even in perpetuity. Still, not all planned gifts are for endowment, and not all endowment gifts are planned gifts.
In Summary
Evergreen zeroes in on planned giving and endowments, to the exclusion of other forms of philanthropy. Easy to bring on board and easy to let go, Evergreen is available to be a part of whatever team a client is seeking to build. Similarly, Evergreen welcomes opportunities to collaborate with other consultants.
I worked very closely with Bill Zook for over 15 years during the time we were building Planned Giving Services and subsequently after the company was sold to PG Calc. He was a significant contributor to the success of the company. He is clearly in the top tier of technical experts in the field of planned giving, and he is very good in helping donors design gift plans that are beneficial both to them and to the charities they wish to support. Because of his extensive work with different types and sizes of charities, he knows how to help any charity implement and operate a planned giving program appropriate for its situation. He is a careful writer, a good listener, and has the highest ethical standards. Whoever hires him for gift planning consulting will not be disappointed.”