Search
Member Login

Welcome to the SoCalCGP Newsletter. The newsletter provides links to this page. Please see below for the items that appeared in the February 2025 issue.

Charting the Course to Gift Planning Excellence

Register for WRPGC 2025!

Join us May 21–23 in Costa Mesa, California for the 2025 Western Regional Planned Giving Conference, where we’ll be Charting the Course for the future of gift planning and philanthropy.

This year’s program [check here for updates!] offers invaluable insights for every stage of your journey — whether you’re mastering the basics, refining strategies, or tackling complex challenges.

Early bird registration ends March 15 — secure your spot today, and take the next step toward professional growth and greater impact!

Scholarships are available. Click here to learn more.

Register Here

Introducing SoCalCGP Educational Sessions

To better reflect our mission and expand access to professional development throughout Southern California, we’re renaming our General Meetings and Regional Mixers as Educational Sessions.

Featuring thought leaders from our region and beyond, these sessions deliver cutting-edge education, trends, and best practices in gift planning. They’re also a space for attorneys, wealth managers, financial advisors, and other trusted partners. 

With this shift, we’re providing opportunities for professionals from San Diego to Santa Barbara and the Inland Empire to the Westside to connect, learn, and grow together.

Advising the Modern Philanthropic Client

By Dien Yuen and Tony Macklin, Daylight Advisors

We face the greatest generational wealth transfer in history as Baby Boomers transition from wealth accumula- tion to retirement. In the U.S., older generations will transfer

$124 trillion by 2048. About half will first go to spouses, mostly widows, and then most will go to younger generations. Around $18 trillion will be donated to charities.

Many clients want to help solve the complex challenges they see in their communities and worldwide, including climate change effects and disparities in housing, economic mobility, health, and education.

The inheritors–women and younger generations–want to use a bigger social impact toolkit to solve those challenges. In addition to charitable giving, they’ll be more likely to use their investments and voices as activists and shoppers. They’ll be more likely to start purpose-led businesses. And, they’ll create or inherit access to vehicles such as donor-advised funds and family foundations.

The New Opportunity for Advisors

Older generations want advisors who can take them from “success to significance” in their lives and in their philanthropy. Inheritors will need advisors who can think holistically about social impact. Their advisors are second only to a spouse or partner as the most valuable source of information about philanthropy.

As an advisor, you are uniquely positioned to help clients purposefully and effectively deploy their financial, human, social, intellectual, and moral or spiritual capitals. But how will you navigate this dynamic social impact landscape and the changing expectations of a more diverse client base?

Answering the evolving market demand requires a more contemporary approach to philanthropic advising. It starts with bringing a combination of heart and head to the conversations. Clients will expect help in discerning their motivations, values, vision, and goals to make a difference in the lives of others.

Clients will then seek help exploring the broader toolkit of possibilities to deliver the social impact they desire. That toolkit starts with up-to-date technical knowledge of charitable giving tools and acumen in deciding when and how best to use them within various tax, estate, and financial planning strategies. Beyond that, they may seek help in related domains of family governance and next-generation engagement, creating philanthropic strategies that might include impact investments or advocacy and assessing their impact.

How Will You Grow Your Philanthropic Advising Competencies?

The new philanthropic advising roles will require confidence and competence with the broader social impact toolkit. They will also require the trust necessary to respectfully challenge clients, prompting deeper thinking about their values and social responsibility.

Last year, Daylight shared the most comprehensive study of philanthropy advisors—anyone involved in navigating the who, what, why, and how of using resources for philanthropy and social impact, either as a full-time job or as part of their role as a wealth advisor, estate planner, or other professional. The report outlines the tools and capabilities contemporary advisors are bringing to clients. It also informs our development of new certification programs in philanthropic advising.

You can be an indispensable partner in expanding your clients’ access to philanthropic advice, whether from you, others in your firm, or the growing number of specialists. We encourage you to answer these questions:

  • What new questions can I ask clients about generosity, purpose, and impact?
  • What new philanthropic advising competencies should I develop to lean into what clients will need next?
  • What specialists will my clients need in the next three years, and do I have enough qualified referrals to provide?

This article was provided by SoCalCGP Bronze Sponsor, Daylight Advisors.

SoCalCGP Member Profile: Lindsey N. Jacobs

Associate Director, Legacy Planning, Chapman University

In 2014, Lindsey made a career change and entered the world of legacy planning as a development coordinator at her alma mater, Chapman University. This shift was her first foray into development and, one month later, she attended her first Western Regional Planned Giving Conference. She loved it, and in 2018 she joined what we now know as SoCalCGP. What began as professional connections have turned into friendships. In her current role as associate director, Lindsey works with Chapman supporters to create personal and meaningful legacies through charitable giving. Wanting to better serve her donors, Lindsey became a Certified Specialist in Planned Giving in 2020. In addition to working in legacy planning at Chapman, she is also a double alumna; Lindsey earned a bachelor's degree in theatre in 2009 and completed her master's in leadership development in 2018. Her favorite part of being a member of the Chapman Family is sharing her passion for the university with others who believe in its mission. In addition to being a huge theatre nerd, she is also a self-described cat lady; she and her partner, Michael, have four cats (Lilah, Lina, Liv, and Mouse), all of whom are rescues. They also *might* feed the neighborhood cats in their backyard as well…

Announcing the Pathway Scholarship!

The Membership and Inclusion Committees of Southern California Charitable Gift Planners (SoCalCGP) are excited to launch the Pathway Scholarship! The objective of the scholarship is to increase accessibility to this professional association for the purposes of professional development, education in charitable gift planning, and networking. Each scholarship will cover membership and all general meetings for 12 months/one year.

Philanthropy professionals serving smaller organizations, particularly those that serve underserved communities; executive directors of nonprofits that may not have dedicated fundraising staff; early-career gift officers and affiliated advisors (CPAs, financial advisors, realtors, etc.); and students who wish to explore careers in charitable gift planning are all encouraged to apply.

Click here to access the application.