Maxine Cuffe 00:03 

You’re listening to Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith. A podcast by The Haverford Trust Company. On Speaking of Quality, Hank chats with authors, influencers and wealth management experts to bring a sense of clarity and calm to the complexity and stress of personal finance. And now – here’s your host, Hank Smith. 

Hank Smith 00:26 

Hello, and welcome to another episode of “Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights.” I’m your host, Hank Smith, Director and Head of Investment Strategy at The Haverford Trust Company. 

On this podcast, we explore topics ranging from quality investing, retirement resilience, stock market trends, estate planning, small business ownership, behavioral psychology and more. This season, my conversations with guests are focused on navigating change and the key decisions driving the future of the economy. Today, I’m excited to welcome Rosemary DiRita to the podcast. Rosemary is a fellow colleague of mine at Haverford Trust. She is a Vice President and Philanthropic Advisor focused on providing our nonprofit clients with strategic guidance and resources. She has over 25 years of experience in relationship management and philanthropic services. Rosemary, thank you for joining me. 

Rosemary DiRita 01:23 

Thanks so much, Hank. I am thrilled to be here. 

Hank Smith 01:26 

Well, before we get into the inner workings at Haverford of what you’re doing and how you’re helping our clients, and it’s always fun to have guests who are employees and give our listeners kind of a under-the-hood look at The Haverford Trust Company. Why don’t you give us a little bit of your background and what motivated you and interested you in a career of philanthropy? 

Rosemary DiRita 01:56 

Absolutely. Well, coming out of Boston College, I knew I wanted to work in the service world, in the nonprofit world. I wasn’t sure exactly what that was going to look like, but it first took me down to Georgetown University, where I worked with students in a leadership program called Escape, and I also had the opportunity to go to graduate school while I worked at Georgetown, and I worked at the Public Policy Institute, and I studied social and public policy. So, it was a wonderful time at Georgetown, and I continued my interest in really wanting to understand the nonprofit sector, and I went directly to work for Habitat for Humanity of Metro Maryland: an amazing opportunity to work with families in the community there as a director of volunteers and family services, had the chance to travel internationally with Habitat, and it just was a wonderful experience. I then moved back to the Philadelphia area and was the executive director of a small nonprofit called Bike and Build, learned so much there, and then went to the federal government as a grants management specialist working for AmeriCorps and working with Senior Corps and VISTA and helping support them in their grant initiatives. 

Hank Smith 03:07 

So, all told, you spent quite a number of years in the DC area, but originally, you’re from outside of Philadelphia in West Chester. Please tell us you didn’t become a Washington, DC, sports fan, that you’re still a Philadelphia sports fan. 

Rosemary DiRita 03:27 

Oh, no, absolutely not. I enjoyed the DC culture and great sports city, lots of fun down there, but absolutely Philadelphia through and through along with my family. So, no questions there. 

Hank Smith 03:41 

So before joining Haverford, you spent 10 years with the Glenmede Trust Company in Philadelphia. Tell us a little bit about that experience and your role there. 

Rosemary DiRita 03:53 

Yes, it was a wonderful opportunity to learn about the world of investment management and specifically work with nonprofit clients and private foundations. I worked with clients nationally, everywhere from Anchorage, Alaska, all throughout the United States and really trying to dig in and help them achieve their missions, learn what they were trying to accomplish, and it just was a great opportunity at the same time to learn about the world of investment management and finance and how all of that came together for nonprofits in the endowment and foundation world. 

Hank Smith 04:28 

So first I’m going to ask what brought you to Haverford, and I’ll also preface that we created a new role that did not previously exist, being a philanthropic advisor, and I believe you had a role in customizing this position. So just tell us a little bit about this role and how you support our nonprofit clients. 

Rosemary DiRita 04:57 

Absolutely. So, I came very deliberately and very purposefully to Haverford, and I’m so excited about the role that was created and the input that I got to have in making this role. And I would say initially about Haverford, our focus here, our geographic focus and our deep partnership with the nonprofit community was so appealing to me. I love being able to work in the community where I’m from, where my family is. I love being able to leverage the relationships that Haverford has, their strong community engagement, and I think that’s very unique about our firm. So, the opportunity to bring my passions and interests here and to build on the great tradition that already exists here of supporting nonprofits was extremely exciting. So that’s a little bit of why I came to Haverford. And then a little bit about my role. So, as you said, it is a new role, and it’s been wonderful and exciting to see what that means. First and foremost, getting to know my Haverford teammates has been so important so that I understand the work that they’re already doing in the nonprofit community. And then stepping back a little bit further, my role is really to provide strategic advice, guidance, education and resources to our nonprofit clients. And all of that is with the goal of complimenting the investment management support that they’re already receiving. And ultimately, we really want to try and support them to advance their mission through our support. 

Hank Smith 06:31 

Some of our listeners might not, in fact, our guests, maybe the majority, probably don’t realize that The Haverford Trust Company has had a deep commitment to the nonprofit community, and we give in hard dollars, not just in time and sweat equity, but in hard dollars, somewhere close to 4% of our gross revenue back to the nonprofit community, in particular to those organizations whose endowments we manage. So, it is a very tangible expression of our support and often quite meaningful to those clients. So, there’s certainly been a culture here of supporting the nonprofit community, and I think we’ve taken it to a different level in terms of creating the position that you’re in as a strategic advisor to help in many ways. So maybe you could give us some anecdotes of work you’ve done with clients to illustrate what you do as a philanthropic advisor and discuss questions and follow-ups. And I think our listeners would really love some real-life anecdotes. 

Rosemary DiRita 07:59 

Absolutely, and I have to say it really is one of the absolute best parts of my job is getting to know our nonprofit partners better because the more that I learn about their work and I really understand their mission and what’s going on there, then that allows me to build out the resources that we can provide them in helping them achieve their mission. So, a couple good stories or good examples of how I’ve worked with clients over the last year. I think one that comes to mind is working with Garrett Williamson. So, Garrett Williamson, if you’re not familiar, is a wonderful organization in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. It provides high-quality, early-childhood education, it has a summer camp, it has farm-based learning programs, and really, they are aiming to connect people and nature on this amazing, historic, 240-acre farm that they’ve been able to preserve for over a hundred years. So, I started working with their portfolio manager, David Moniz. We had an initial meeting out at the farm. I got to meet their Executive Director, Carol Ruark and Jennifer Trimble, who works as their CFO, and really got a sense of what they’re doing there. I got to see the school, got to dig into asking them questions about what’s going on in their fundraising, what are their plans, what are their challenges, what do they need? And from there we’ve built the relationship. I speak with them every couple months, check in, what’s going on. They’ve reached out when they’ve had questions. I’ve started attending their events alongside their portfolio manager, David. We got to go – I just recently was at their Fall Fest, and then when they had some questions, for instance around stock gifts and how they could incorporate that into their giving, what’s going on with donor-advised fund, what should they know – I was able to share with them some direct resources. We just did a great webcast with DAFgiving360 on donor-advised funds. So, I was able to provide them with that and truly just building a relationship of trust. And I would even say even as far as our family even adopted a sheep named Betty from their Adopt an Animal program because I just love the work that they’re doing there. And so, we sponsor Betty, and we get to go out to the farm, and it’s just been a wonderful relationship, and I look forward to building upon that, but that encapsulates a lot of what the kind of work that I do. 

Hank Smith 10:26 

Well, I’m relieved to know that Betty the sheep isn’t your gardener at your house, but rather is out at the Garrett Williamson Farm. 

Rosemary DiRita 10:37 

Yep. We get to go visit her, and my daughter can feed her hay, all the good things. So, it’s just a wonderful relationship. 

Hank Smith 10:47 

Any other anecdotes that you could share with us? 

Rosemary DiRita 10:50 

Absolutely. So, another one that I have just really enjoyed, and I think encapsulates what we’re trying to accomplish with my role, is my work with the Wayne Senior Center. So again, working alongside, it happens to be David again, David Moniz is their portfolio manager, but I’ve met with their Executive Director, Katie Mahon, Jennie Sheeks, their Director of Giving and Community Connections. I have presented alongside David to their board of directors trying to understand some governance and education needs that they had, how we could support that and give the staff resources as they’re building out their board around developing and looking for new board members and also around fundraising. So, they have wonderful programming there, and they are interested in building out their planned-giving program. So, I was able to provide them with some direct resources and then we talk monthly, sometimes in person, sometimes we have a Zoom, and just what’s going on, how we can help get that launched and really dig into their planned-giving program. So, we’re just getting started, and I can’t wait to continue to build that out with them, and just was at their 50th anniversary celebration a few weeks ago, having a chance to see the community, see the board, et cetera. So that’s another great example, and there’s many more like that, but those are two. I can give a couple more, but those are two. 

Hank Smith 12:12 

So, in my 34 years at Haverford, I’ve been involved on the boards of several nonprofits, mostly schools, colleges, and art organizations. So, I know the challenges, the obvious one is fundraising, but also staff turnover and even board turnover. Can you talk about how you address some of these challenges and the advice that you give to the various nonprofits that encounter these? 

Rosemary DiRita 12:51 

Yes, and I think right now, more than ever, these are really big challenges that they’re facing. I think that the turnover and the staff retention is a huge one, especially in the area of fundraising. So, I think working with the executive directors in particular so that they’re able to have good communication with their boards, and they’re able to convey to their boards what their needs are, what are the best practices. I just provided somebody, for instance, with some industry research on what are the best practices in the donor development world as far as finding what the staffing looks like. So, they’re trying to understand, especially for small organizations, what do we need? What resources do we need to provide? Are we clearly articulating expectations? So, I think really trying to be a trusted advisor that can help them feel they’re not in it alone. We know it’s a challenge, but that we can work on that together. And that goes in a lot to board development as you were saying. So, a common question I get is we need more board members or we need to retain our board members. So, I’ve been able to provide a board governance toolkit and really looking at, do you have job descriptions for your board? What are you asking people to do? How often are you meeting? What is your succession plan? Again, those are really ongoing conversations, but some of it is a little bit of the education of the staff. Some of it is a little bit of the education of the board themselves. Then also the last thing I would say is trying to give them access to the larger Haverford network. We have so many wonderful people at our firm, in the community who know us at other nonprofits. So, I’m constantly looking for ways that we can try to connect and engage and help our nonprofits expand their own networks. 

Hank Smith 14:41 

I’m not aware of any nonprofit endowment, what have you, that isn’t desirous of more money or actually needs more money. And even the lucky ones that get a donation, an unexpected donation or bequeath, they will find that their operating budget grows into that very, very quickly. But I think there’s good news here, and that is we have begun and we’re very early in what is the greatest transfer of generational wealth in world history. We’re talking about the passing of the baby-boom generation and all of that 80 trillion-plus dollars going to either the next generation or donated to the nonprofit community. So, it’s an incredible opportunity, but there are a lot of mouths to feed. There are a lot of hands that are asking for money. So, it’s very, very competitive from that standpoint. Do you have any thoughts around that whole notion of this monumental generational transfer of wealth? 

Rosemary DiRita 16:04 

It really is unprecedented, and I think as you said, it’s somewhere around the 80 trillion-dollar mark that they’re estimating to transfer, and everybody that I’m speaking with, a lot of the nonprofits are trying to figure out how can we make sure that we’re ready for, it’s happening now, but then also looking forward a little bit. And I think one of the biggest trends or areas of importance that I’m hearing people continue to talk about, and those who are raising money successfully, what they’re doing, I think actually comes around to donor retention and long-term stewardship. So, as you said, there’s lots of competitors for dollars – the cost of living is high, people have a lot of things they’re passionate about, their family members to take care of, their faith communities, lots of things going on. So, if there are donors that have given to an organization, it’s always important to acquire new donors, but making sure that those donors are retained and that you’re thinking ahead and that long-term stewardship is important. So as that wealth gets transferred, things like non-cash gifts, we’ve seen a huge rise in that. Planned giving is kind of how everybody refers to it, but things like gifts of stock, putting a nonprofit in somebody’s will with a bequest, and that might be somebody who’s been a mid-level donor for many years, but in their estate planning, they’re able to give even more because they feel so connected to a nonprofit. And as we know, Americans are amazingly generous. I think all giving in the United States from last I looked – I think it’s somewhere around $390 billion in 2023. 66% of all giving still is from individuals. So that’s an amazing, wonderful fact, and I think it’s never been more important for nonprofits to have relationships with their donors, and that will come into play very importantly with the Great Wealth Transfer that’s already underway. 

Hank Smith 18:05 

My listeners have heard me say this before, but I truly believe one of the secret sauces of what makes this country so special, unique, and great is philanthropy because there is no other developed country that does philanthropy. The developed countries in Europe expect the state to do it, not private philanthropy or foundations. And as you pointed out, yes, you have mammoth foundations like the Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, et cetera, but the majority of giving comes from middle America and even lower middle America in the income scale through donations to their church or their community organizations. And it’s very, very unique, and I think it’s an under-celebrated fact in this country. We just don’t celebrate it enough, and I think we should. So, you’re right, we’ve had this tremendous bull market with corrections and occasional bear markets along the way, but there is so much appreciated wealth in stock securities that that’s just a obvious way to give and avoid having to pay that tax when it’s sold and let the organization sell it. What are some of the other, you mentioned donor-advised funds, private foundations, what else have you seen in this world? 

Rosemary DiRita 19:57 

Sure. I think it is a combination of the easiest ways that a nonprofit can make a donor or the easiest that a nonprofit can make it for a donor to give. It works to their advantage. So, you’ll see a lot – if you look now on the kind of “ways to give” page for a lot of organizations, there are a lot of creative things going on, the non-cash assets. I think that’s one of the biggest trends that we’re going to continue to see. The gifts of stock, qualified charitable distributions, things that are tax-efficient giving vehicles. I think you and I know most people give because of legacy and passion and what they’re interested in. And, absolutely, I think that will continue to be the driver for giving, but making it easy as possible is a good thing, and that’s where things like donor-advised funds have become immensely, immensely popular. I think my last look at that was about $250 billion in assets are in donor-advised funds in the United States right now with I think on last take about $54 billion given out in 2023 alone. And donor-advised funds, I know they’re in the news a lot, they’re very popular, but that’s because there’s a lot of flexibility there. A lot of foundations may have a private foundation and a donor-advised fund. You can give anonymously through a donor-advised fund. They’re just really interesting ways that people can be flexible with their philanthropy and not just what used to be thought of as major gift donors. Now most organizations, we partner here at Haverford with DAFgiving360, so DAFgiving360 for instance, for nonprofits, donors can set up a donor-advised fund, and they don’t even have a minimum through DAFgiving360. So, for nonprofits, they can work with donors of all different levels and just try to get really creative about how does a donor want to give and how can they make it easy as possible. So, I think we’ll continue to see that, and especially with the non-cash gift assets. 

Hank Smith 21:59 

And when you think of the aging of the baby-boom generation, and I don’t mean to be morbid, but the increasing passing away of the baby-boom generation, it would seem to me with all of this wealth transfer that there’s nothing but more growth in that area of donor-advised funds, that isn’t. And then we have the next generation after the baby boom, which is equally as big. I get my generations all mixed up. Are they millennials? Are they Gen Z? I’m not sure. All I know from a numbers perspective, it’s every big as the baby boom generation. So, there’s a long runway of this transfer of wealth. And again, the nonprofit community is going to be of big beneficiary of that. 

Rosemary DiRita 22:59 

Absolutely, and I think that they’re trying to be poised for that. I think they’re also looking at how AI is going to transform fundraising. You can’t run from AI. There are so many wonderful things about it, and I think for the nonprofit sector, I think it’s trying to figure out what it’s going to actually mean. So, there’s a lot of resources out there right now about helping nonprofits. How can it actually help them? Is it going to be grant writing? Can they actually use it for small-staffed organizations with outreach? Can they save time for the staff? So, I think that’s going to be another area that we’re going to see how AI is really able to transform the work of fundraising in an effective, well-governed way. So that’s another area that we’ll be watching. 

Hank Smith 23:44 

I want to talk a little bit about a challenge that I’ve personally encountered and that is a turnover of development officers. I mean, you talked about building lasting relationships. That’s challenging when your contact person, your development person, is changing every other year. How are nonprofits addressing that? 

Rosemary DiRita 24:14 

I couldn’t agree with you more. It is a huge challenge. When I work with private foundations, a lot of the time every year before they would send out a grant, I have to check with the nonprofit to see who is the development person. Has that person changed from year to year because the turnover is so high, the turnover rates, and there’s some great resources out there and thoughts around this in things like the Chronicle of Philanthropy. And I think what I’m hearing from people and what I see is part of it goes into the expectations. What is the role of the development director or the head of advancement? Is it realistic for a board to think that a director of development really can do the job of five people, can they write grants and do an annual report and have a planned-giving campaign and do all of these things? So, I think when I’m seeing development directors that have been in place for a long time and that are doing a great job – I know you’re very familiar with AIM. I know Joy, the Director of Advancement there, Joy Antonoplos. She does an amazing job, and I think that what you see when they’re successful is that they have the support of the leadership of an organization and the board to set up realistic expectations for what can be accomplished, and then they have the tools and the support to carry that out. I think it’s just so important as you’re saying about relationship building to figure out a way to make those sustainable positions because it takes time. It takes, as we all know, it takes time to build relationships, and nothing is more important than that. So, I think that’s a huge thing so that development directors are set up a little bit more for success from the beginning and that the expectations are realistic for what they can accomplish and how long it’s going to take to carry that out because they’re only one person. And I think that it’s an important time for organizations to look at the whole culture of philanthropy and really make sure that everybody is contributing to that. 

Hank Smith 26:11 

Rosemary, how can interested organizations get in touch with you? 

Rosemary DiRita 26:17 

Well, many of our clients, I hope I’ve met you already, and if I haven’t, you can always reach out to your portfolio manager to directly get in touch with me. But my information is also on our website at https://haverfordquality.com/, and I’m on LinkedIn. I’m very active on LinkedIn and love to connect with people there as well, so that’s a great way to find me. 

Hank Smith 26:37 

Well, that’s terrific. Rosemary, thank you for joining us on Speaking of Quality. It’s always fun to have a colleague on the podcast and sharing a peek behind the curtain, so to speak, at the great work being done at The Haverford Trust to uplift our community. Thank you for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights. Our next episode will be released shortly. In the meantime, please send suggestions or questions for me or The Haverford Trust team to marketing@haverfordquality.com. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share this podcast. Until next time, I’m Hank Smith. Stay bullish. 

Bryan Tracy 27:20 

Hello, all. That was a great episode. It’s time for Planning in Practice. I’m Bryan Tracy, Vice President and Director of Wealth Planning at Haverford Trust. In this segment, we’ll uncover key insights and tangible advice for your own wealth planning journey. What a conversation between Rosemary and Hank. I really enjoyed hearing Rosemary’s thoughts and her ideas and how she’s working with our clients here at Haverford on that nonprofit, foundation, institutional side, really pulling back the hood and hearing her day-to-day is really exciting. I’ve had the opportunity here for the past year or so to work closely with Rosemary, and she’s been an excellent resource and really expert in the area of charitable giving, and we’ve used her and we worked with her from an individual client standpoint when we’ve had various questions come in from clients around potential ways to give, et cetera. So, it’s been a great collaboration and a great opportunity for our two teams to really serve our clients here at Haverford. Charitable giving is really an important and meaningful conversation that we do have with our clients. It’s an area that I’m very passionate about and get really excited when it comes to having discussions with our clients on their values, their mission, they’re passionate about, and areas that they would like to give. As Rosemary discussed, with her focus on the institutional side, is really an area or an opportunity for us to leverage her skills when it comes to individual giving and focusing with our clients on the individual level of how they’re going about their giving and meeting their philanthropic goals. We really begin the conversation with clients around really how it impacts or how it’s part of one’s financial plan. So, when we think about a charitable budget of how much does one want to be giving to charity, whether it’s a certain dollar amount or a percent of assets, those are really areas that we are able to work with clients to build those figures into their financial plan to ensure that their sustainability of that along with other spending needs, et cetera. And that is conversations that are happening during one’s life as far as giving during their life or also in the form of planned giving, as Rosemary mentioned, at one’s passing of leaving assets to charity. Rosemary talked about a few charitable vehicles that we’re seeing donor-advised funds, qualified charitable distributions, QCDs. So that’s really an area that we’re working in, discussing with our clients of various charitable vehicle options that they may want to consider, whether it’s a charitable trust or a foundation. Those are really great opportunities to get into the details and understand what options are out there and how does it fit into one’s plan. It’s not always about taxes, but taxes are an aspect of the discussion when it comes to planning and charitable giving. It is also an opportunity that we’ve seen recently when we think about charitable trends, has really been on the retirement side and using retirement plans to be the main source of funding for one’s charitable goals. And that has, there’s a few different reasons behind that, but really that has been a pretty big shift of focusing on those types of assets to either give during one’s lifetime or leaving, say, in the form of a beneficiary designation, either an entire IRA or a retirement account, or even a percentage of a retirement account to one’s nonprofit that they may be interested in. Recently in the past few months now here with the passing of the tax bill back in July, there were a few tax provisions that were actually in there. There’s a few opportunities, positive tax benefits for charitable giving, and there are a few challenges that will be impacting our clients. So, we’ve been really working and having conversation. It’s been a great time to really level set, go back to the drawing board, understand how those both opportunities and challenges may impact one’s charitable giving, and really talk through the timing of when one should be thinking about giving certain amounts, et cetera. So, as I talked about, these are very important conversations. They’re very enjoying conversations as far as connecting one’s values really with their money. So, if this conversation is resonating with you and you’d like to have a further discussion to really dive into your interests and the various ways that you can go about achieving those, we’re happy to be a resource and start the conversation today. Thank you. 

Maxine Cuffe 31:47 

Thank you for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith. To hear future episodes of Speaking of Quality, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about The Haverford Trust Company, please visit https://haverfordquality.com/. This podcast is provided as general commentary and market overview, and should not be relied upon as research, a forecast or investment advice, and is not a recommendation, offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or to adopt an investment strategy. Any opinions expressed are as of the date this podcast was recorded and may change at any time and are the opinions of that commentator, not Haverford. Any opinion or information provided are believed by Haverford to be reliable at the time of this podcast’s recording, but are not necessarily all-inclusive or guaranteed for accuracy. Before making any financial decisions, please consult with an investment professional.