Like many financial advisors, Lauren Hutto likes to present her clients with choices when making recommendations. More often now, she includes charitable solutions in the options she offers.
She recently took that approach with a retired couple she knows well from volunteering with them at her church’s bread ministry. They sold their home before moving into an assisted living facility and wanted to be smart with the $200,000 from the sale.
“I explained that annuities can be like buying a pension and showed them the single premium immediate annuity from Thrivent and Thrivent Charitable's
Lauren says, “A gift annuity provides a form of control for clients. They make decisions about charities to support before they pass away and don’t need to hope their family follows through.” In this case, the clients identified their church, their alma mater and cancer research as causes to receive the remainder of their gift annuity over time.
Thrivent Charitable's options allow your clients to choose either an immediate or deferred gift annuity set up for one life or two, joint or successive.
Lauren is excited to share the benefits of partnering with Thrivent Charitable with new and veteran FAs. “If we don’t know how to talk about a concept like gift annuities, we won’t bring it up in our conversations with clients,” she says. “But Thrivent Charitable can be the expert and hold your hand through the process.”
Helping Clients Find Holes in their Plan
A Thrivent FA for six years, Lauren is serving a new role on her team as a practice developer. “It can be like drinking from a fire hydrant that first year, so I am a coach to help new FAs learn,” she says.
Lauren became an FA after a career in-home health care. “People were not ready for that stage of life, and I decided I should figure out how to help them,” she recalls.
She tells clients, “There could be a hole in your plan that you don’t know you have. Let me help you find the hole.” And now she has begun to incorporate the charitable aspect of planning in that approach. “It’s just part of the fact-finding to ask about their hobbies and passions and find out where their heart lies based on how they spend their money,” she says.
If you are looking for new ways to reach clients with charitable intent, contact a