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Planned giving aims to tap release of assets
by Stephen C. Nill, J.D.,
Editor, American Philanthropy Review
April 13, 1996; CharityVillage NewsWeek
In Canada, one-half of the parents of baby boomers will be gone in just 19 years. The historic wave of dollars they will release is enormous, considering that they now control 75 percent of Canada's personal wealth.
Estimates project that as much as $4 trillion will be released in Canada in the next 45 years, half of it by 2015. Viewed strategically, planned giving is the single most powerful means by which Canadian nonprofit organisations can compete with the government and with baby boomers their share of the pie.
Because of its strategic importance, one term that is used to describe the strategic view (rather than the gift-planning view) of planned giving is, simply, "strategic planned giving."
It is hardly surprising, then, that Canada's nonprofits, so thoroughly intertwined financially with a government that is intent on reducing support for its nonprofit charges, are embracing planned giving in record numbers.
A recent survey conducted by the Canadian Association of Gift Planners (CAGP) found that 58 percent of Canadian nonprofit institutions had recently established planned giving programmes, and about half of the rest would do so shortly.
Unlike the United States, where on occasion it is possible to find gift planners with 25 or more years experience, Canadian planned giving, formally at least, has been in existence for only about five years. Indeed, 84 percent of Canadian gift planners have been in the field four years or less. One-fourth have less than one year of experience, according to the survey.
The professional organisation for Canadian gift planners, Canadian Association of Gift Planners (CAGP), was organised in November, 1992. It is structured similarly to the National Committee on Planned Giving, the U.S. planned giving professional organisation. As with the U.S. counterpart, CAGP is comprised of regional councils where local members conduct educational programmes. It is open to any person interested in planned giving, including, for example, planned giving officers of registered charities, fund-raising consultants, accountants, financial planners, life underwriters, lawyers, and so on.
The CAGP held the first national conference in April, 1994, and, in a sign of the importance of planned giving to Canadian philanthropy, sold out. No doubt this year's conference (the third), scheduled for April 24 through 27, At the Wall Centre Garden Hotel in Vancouver, will do the same. Enrolment is already over 260 delegates.

Stephen C. Nill, J.D., is editor of American Philanthropy Review and manager of the Mailing List Talk-AmPhilRev for all professionals in the field of fund development. To subscribe, send e-mail to majordomo@tab.com with a blank subject line and "subscribe talk-amphilrev" in the message.