When Should You Refer a Client to the Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia?
A practical guide for CPAs, financial advisors, and estate attorneys in Northwest Georgia
A few years ago, a local CPA was working with a client on the sale of a commercial building. The client was facing a significant capital gains bill and had been meaning to do something charitable for years but had never gotten around to it.
The CPA connected with our team, and together we helped structure a charitable gift of the building to a charitable fund ahead of the closing. The client captured the full deduction, avoided the capital gains tax, and finally had a plan for the charitable giving he had been thinking about for years.
That is what a well-timed connection looks like.
Many financial advisors, CPAs, and estate attorneys throughout Northwest Georgia believe in the power of charitable giving and financial planning working together. They see the opportunities in their clients' lives, but without a clear sense of when to bring it up, the conversation sometimes never starts.
Here are the client situations that open the door to a productive conversation with the Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia.
When Your Client Has a Liquidity Event
This is the single biggest referral trigger, and it shows up in several different scenarios.
Appreciated Stock
The most common version is appreciated stock. A client holds shares purchased years ago, the gains are substantial, and they want to sell. A sale could trigger a large capital gains bill. If they donate a portion of those shares to a donor advised fund before selling, depending on their tax situation they may be able to claim an income tax deduction for the full fair market value while avoiding capital gains tax on the donated shares.
This strategy comes up every year, but it surfaces more frequently in strong market years when clients are sitting on significant unrealized gains.
One reason a donor advised fund works so well in these situations is timing. A contribution to a DAF allows the donor to lock in a tax deduction (to the extent allowed by law) during the tax year when the gain is realized, with no required timeline for distributing grants from the fund. The donor can take as long as they need to decide where and when to give.
Business Sales, Retirement Payouts, and Real Estate
These events are less frequent but involve larger sums. A client sells a business they have operated for decades, and the wealth locked up in the company is suddenly liquid. Someone retires from a major local employer and receives a lump-sum payout of accrued bonuses, sometimes reaching six figures in a single year. A client sells a commercial building or piece of real estate that has appreciated considerably since purchase.
In any of these scenarios, a significant tax obligation usually arrives in a compressed timeframe. The charitable giving conversation needs to happen before the transaction closes, not after.
Connecting your client with our team before closing gives them room to explore a giving strategy that could capture an immediate tax deduction while preserving time to decide where and how they want to give. They do not have to sort out the charitable side while also managing the transaction itself.
When Your Client Is Planning for Retirement
The five years before and after retirement are a quiet but meaningful window for charitable giving planning.
Pre-Retirement: Front-Loading Contributions
Before retirement, a client in peak earning years sits in their highest tax bracket. That is exactly when front-loading charitable contributions usually makes the most sense. If a client plans to keep giving after retirement, whether to their church, alma mater, or local nonprofits, the math often works better if they fund a donor advised fund now, capture the deduction at the higher rate, and then recommend grants from the fund at their own pace in the years that follow.
As noted above, deduction limits may apply, and in some cases the donor's tax advisor may recommend spreading the contribution over multiple years to maximize the benefit.
Local CPAs describe this as one of the more common patterns they see: a client in their late 50s or early 60s, active in their church or community, begins putting cash into a donor advised fund each year to lock in the deduction while still earning. After retirement, they continue giving from the fund at the same level, but the tax benefit was already captured at the higher bracket.
After Retirement: Qualified Charitable Distributions
Once a client retires, a different tool enters the picture. Many retirees can no longer itemize because the standard deduction is high enough that itemizing does not make sense for most filers. But beginning at age 73, required minimum distributions from retirement accounts still arrive on schedule.
A Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) allows clients who are 70½ or older to direct money from an IRA straight to a qualified public charitable organization. When a client reaches age 73 and required minimum distributions begin, a QCD can count toward satisfying that requirement while keeping the distributed amount out of taxable income. It works even for clients who do not itemize.
A few important details for advisors to know: the 2026 annual QCD limit is $111,000 per individual ($222,000 for married couples filing jointly). QCDs must go directly from the IRA custodian to the charity and cannot be directed to a donor advised fund or private foundation. And QCDs can only be made from IRAs, not from 401(k)s or other employer plans unless those funds are first rolled into an IRA.
If your client is still writing checks to their favorite charities from a personal bank account, a QCD conversation is worth starting. It may reduce their taxable income without changing the giving they already planned. As always, we advise involving the donor's tax advisor to determine whether a QCD is the right approach for their specific situation.
When Your Client Is Updating Their Estate Plan
Charitable giving and estate planning intersect more often than clients expect, and a well-timed referral can help your clients make decisions that reflect their values, not just their balance sheet.
Wills and Beneficiary Designations
Here is a scenario that comes up often among estate planning attorneys in Northwest Georgia: a client is drafting or updating their will, and the attorney asks what happens if both spouses pass away with no surviving heirs.
The default used to be the local United Way or a similar umbrella organization. Increasingly, estate planning attorneys in this region are recommending the Community Foundation as a default or remainder beneficiary, because a gift directed through our foundation can support local causes the client cares about rather than going to a single organization they may not feel connected to.
Clients thinking about their legacy, particularly those without children or with adult children who are already financially independent, often want their estate to support this community in a lasting way. A named fund, a scholarship, or a field-of-interest fund can reflect a client's values and benefit the region for decades.
Life Insurance
Life insurance is another place where estate planning and charitable giving naturally meet. A client who no longer needs coverage on an existing whole life policy can gift the policy itself, simplifying their estate while potentially qualifying for an income tax deduction.
Naming the foundation as a beneficiary accomplishes much of the same thing with less complexity. For clients who want their legacy to support causes that matter to them, either approach can direct assets toward lasting community impact.
Charitable Trusts and Revocable Planning
Attorneys who work with charitable trusts encounter situations where a client creating a revocable trust wants to designate a charitable beneficiary, or where someone setting up a charitable remainder trust needs to name the receiving charitable organization.
In each case, the Community Foundation can serve as that recipient without requiring the attorney or client to identify specific nonprofits during the drafting process. We can hold the gift and direct it thoughtfully once the time comes.
Appreciated Real Estate
Real estate intersects here as well. Attorneys who handle property transactions may see opportunities when a client is selling appreciated property and looking for ways to reduce the tax impact. A timely referral before closing can open up options the client may not have known were available. As with any complex gift, we recommend involving the donor's tax and legal counsel in the planning.
When Your Client Wants to Give But Does Not Know How
Not every referral starts with a tax strategy. Some start with a client who says, simply, that they want to do something meaningful for this community but do not know where to begin.
These clients already give. They write checks to their church, contribute to school fundraisers, and respond to annual appeals. But their giving feels scattered, and they sense there might be a better way to organize it without it becoming another obligation.
It is worth noting that not every donor wants or needs a donor advised fund. Some people simply want to give to a specific cause or nonprofit and would benefit from guidance on how to do it well. The Foundation can help with that, too.
We provide counsel on giving strategies, connect donors with local organizations, and help them get the most from their charitable efforts. This guidance is provided free of charge, whether or not the donor ever opens a fund with us.
What Northwest Georgia Needs That a National Platform Cannot Provide
This is where a referral can be genuinely valuable for your client, because what they need is not a transaction platform. It is a conversation with someone who knows this region.
Fidelity, Schwab, and Vanguard all offer donor advised funds, and those platforms are built well for what they do. They process contributions efficiently and keep fees low. What they cannot do is tell your client that there is a gap in mental health services for teenagers in Dalton, that the volunteer fire department in Murray County needs new equipment, or that a scholarship fund could change the trajectory for an entire graduating class in Calhoun.
A national brokerage fund gives your client a place to hold charitable dollars. A conversation with our team gives them a partner who knows what is happening in Whitfield, Gordon, Bartow, Murray, and Catoosa counties and can help them figure out where their giving will make the biggest difference here at home.
If your clients already use a brokerage donor advised fund, it is worth asking whether they are getting any guidance on where to give or simply accumulating a balance. A community foundation offers the same tax benefits and flexible giving tools, with local expertise and personal attention built into the relationship.
What Advisors Experience When They Partner with Us
For advisors evaluating where to send their clients, the practical details matter. The Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia manages more than $100 million in charitable assets across more than 260 active funds and has distributed $84.2 million in grants to local organizations since the late 1990s.
Investment returns have consistently ranked in the top 15% nationally among community foundations. Pricing is competitive with Fidelity Charitable, Schwab Charitable, and Vanguard Charitable. Our fees are very low, and our initial consultation is always free for the advisor and the donor.
But the advisors who refer clients to us regularly describe the relationship in terms that go beyond those numbers. They tell us the referral process is straightforward, the client experience reflects well on their own practice, and the charitable planning conversation complements the work they were already doing rather than complicating it.
We are not accountants or attorneys, but we work alongside them every day. For large or complex gifts, we can often bring in legal and accounting professionals to support the planning process.
That is the goal on our end. Your client relationship stays intact. We add a philanthropic layer to the financial plan, estate strategy, or tax work you are already building, and your client walks away with something they have often been thinking about for years.
We serve clients across Cartersville, Dalton, Calhoun, Murray County, and Catoosa County.
What a Referral Looks Like
If you have recognized a client in one or more of these scenarios, the next step is a simple one. You do not need to become an expert in charitable planning to make the introduction.
Give us a call, describe your client's situation in general terms, and we will take it from there. We will meet with your client, with you in the room if you prefer, listen to their interests and priorities, walk through the options, and help build a plan that fits. The initial conversation is free, typically takes about 30 minutes, and your client leaves with clarity on something they may have been meaning to address for years.
Every donor's circumstances are different, and the tax benefits of any charitable strategy will depend on the individual's situation. We always recommend that donors work closely with their own CPA or attorney. Our role is to complement that relationship, not replace it.
If you are ready to start a conversation, reach out directly. We would welcome the chance to talk through how we can work together.
Together in generosity,
David Aft
CEO, Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia
david.aft@communityfoundationnwga.org
communityfoundationnwga.org
706.275.9117