Real estate gifts: Untapped potential for nonprofits
In a cash-strapped economy, many nonprofit fund developers are now looking at gifts of real estate to take up the slack. Writing for the Graduate School at Bay Path College, Dennis Bidwell writes:
As the effects of the deteriorating economy ripple through development offices of non-profit organizations of all sizes and shapes, increasing attention is being paid to the potential of real estate gifts. This shift in attention is due to several factors:
- With growing liquidity concerns in most households, cash gifts – current or deferred – are becoming harder and harder to come by. This is causing development professionals to turn more of their attention to the non-cash assets of their donors and prospects, particularly real estate assets.
- Real estate assets comprise over 35 percent of the assets of U.S. households. Yet only about 3 percent of charitable giving in recent years has come from real estate gifts. Development offices are increasingly recognizing the need to go where the wealth is - the largely untapped potential of real estate.
- More attention is being paid to the experience of those non-profits that have consistently attracted large numbers of substantial real estate gifts. A survey conducted by the National Committee on Planned Giving, published in the Fall 2008 issue of The Journal of Gift Planning, reported that 13 percent of institutions responding received over 10 percent of their total contributions as real estate gifts over the previous three years, as measured in dollars.
