Amplify

Making Smart Decisions with Josh Tirado

Joe: Hello, and welcome to the show. My name is Joe Woolworth. I produce the making smart decisions podcast with Josh Tirado. I'm here today with Josh Tirado and David Morgan. The founders of the Amplify program that we are going to learn about today.

[00:00:31] So let's get started, guys. Josh, tell me a little bit about Amplify.

[00:00:35]Josh: So amplify as a program that we created, and our slogan is your immediate and sustainable giving strategy.

[00:00:40]Joe: Great. So you guys are going to work with individuals to help nonprofits by helping individuals give more money to nonprofits, basically.

[00:00:48] Josh: That is correct. Our end goal is to get more money to the nonprofits for today and in the future, hence our immediate and sustainable giving strategy.

[00:00:57]Joe: how did you guys come up with this idea?

[00:00:58] Like, what was the logic behind partnering up on this?

[00:01:01] David: . I've been in the nonprofit space for a while, and one of the problems I think this solves is. Everyone's going after more followers, and it's really about quantity. And that can make you look good, but a lot of nonprofits have a problem getting to the depth, and connecting to givers is how they'd like.

[00:01:18] And so I think this can do that. It offers a tool to say, yeah, we'd love for you to, for example, buy our coffee. But what if you can connect with us more deeply, even in a generational way. And so I think this removes an obstacle in being able to do that.

[00:01:33] Joe: And David, you have experienced in the nonprofit world.

[00:01:36] David: Yeah. Around 2013, my wife and I founded love abounds and just really briefly. So we do village development in Zambia that looks like clean water. Right now. We have two homes for abandoned children, and we have a women's empowerment project that teaches women to be entrepreneurs themselves by farming chickens.

[00:01:55]That, and then. Also, really quick to Condi coffee is a coffee company that we started that funds all of that or helps fund all of that. So we've been in the space for a while, and we really enjoy it. I love entrepreneurship in all its forms, and I liked that you.

[00:02:09] Joe: guys, obviously. Are passionate about people giving to nonprofits because it can make on people's, and now you're forming this amplify program to help people be better-equipped givers.

[00:02:20] So tell me about the strategies on how you guys are going to help people amplify their giving.

[00:02:29] Josh: So I'd like to touch on just two examples of two topics of two strategies we can use. And these strategies really came to light because, as David mentioned, he's been in this space or working.

[00:02:38]As director of a nonprofit and working with nonprofits for a long period of time, I've been working with nonprofits and specifically several churches for the past 22 years to help with giving. And the same problem came up repeatedly; where there's some legacy giving where people wanted to give a family gift when someone passed away. However, all nonprofits need operating capital.

[00:03:00] Now they need money. Now it helps them for their mission, not just necessarily in 20 or 30 years. Over the past 20 years, we see the same problems over and over again. And Dave and I thought you know what? There has to be a better way. And what if we came up with a formalized program to help the nonprofits and put together a nice structure for their giving.

[00:03:18] And that's where we originally came up with amplify. So two examples I want to discuss one helps to amplify the current gifts. The other one helps to amplify future gifts, and there are several different planning strategies we can utilize. But here are two prevalent ones. The first one is called the donor-advised fund.

[00:03:35] What this allows the person to do. This is the person donating the money. They can donate virtually an unlimited amount of money into a donor-advised fund. Now, the donor-advised fund sounds technical sounds nice. The platform I use, they have actually branded it as the giving fund. I think that's a more accurate description.

[00:03:52] The donor can donate a virtually unlimited amount of money into the fund. And they receive a tax break on the entire amount that they contribute to the fund. Now, it says the fund, and it's not one mutual fund. It's actually set up as a brokerage account. They have control over managing and working with the professional to manage the brokerage account's investments and grow it.

[00:04:13] And from there, they determine. Which qualified five Oh one C3 charities will receive some of that money. And if they're having a great year, they can donate more. If they're having a down year, they can donate less and donate to one charity. They can donate to multiple charities. You have total control over it, but the donor receives Benefits cause he had a huge tax break.

[00:04:31] They can manage the money. And we also encouraged them to turn it into a legacy. Play, involve the children. If they're older, involved, the grandchildren, get them involved. So that way, they're getting in the habit of donating and enriches their souls. And it's a great family thing as well as the actual dollars.

[00:04:48] And then when the original people pass away, they can even leave it to the family, and the family can continue to manage it and donate to the charities, and you can create a great legacy. But what's great is you're managing the money. You're growing the money, but you're giving it now. So you can see what's happening.

[00:05:03] You can see the fruits of your labor and the fruits of your donations with the nonprofit and the nonprofit benefits because instead of waiting for the person to pass away to receive the gift, eventually, you're getting more money now. And if that person was going to donate a set amount of money, now they're getting a tax break on that money, which allows them to donate even more money if they want to kick in some of those tax savings and it's invested.

[00:05:24] So that gift can really start to snowball year after year and create a perpetual gift. So the donor advice fund slash giving fund is a great strategy where everyone benefits now, instead of necessarily in the future,

[00:05:37] David: from a non-profit perspective, I think many times, donors can feel like it's really risky to give a big gift.

[00:05:46] And that makes sense. So what you want is somebody who has the expertise of having done this before the financial aspect, the estate planning aspect. To be able to say, yeah, you're in safe hands. This is what we can do in a very predictable way. It's not giving the non-profit a large some, and we're not sure what will happen with it.

[00:06:07]I think nonprofits are really leaving a lot of money on the table just because. There's no program to guide and answer questions from this perspective.

[00:06:18] Non-profits are just—overworked, underpaid. And I think what's daunting to them is doing a whole nother campaign to raise more money from the same people who usually give them money. So that's an obstacle they're trying to overcome. What's beautiful about this is we don't have to be a part of some giant campaign tha...