Episode 293: Do we realize that women are the key to the next 25-50 years of philanthropy?
It's such an honor that you would take a few minutes of your J to join me, Randall, on this edition of A round with Randall. I want to try to be Carnac the Magnificent for a moment. And if that doesn't mean anything to you, that may speak more to my age than to yours. But the great Johnny Carson in his skits would do Carnac the Magnificent look into the future, try to predict it wearing his swami hat and his jar with the answers from, I believe, Funchal Waggles port.
That jar medically sealed so I don't have the jar, nor Johnny Carson's talents do come from the place he did. So we'll use it for a moment. And what we're looking at is what is going to be in 25 to 50 years. And that is a loaded question. And so I'm going to quickly narrow it. Who's making the decisions when it comes to philanthropy in the next 25 to 50 years.
And that's what we want to talk about today because it's changed in the last 25 or 50 years. When we look at the totality of how decisions are made, and we need to come to grips with it. It's probably a good thing and we can adjust for this, but we have to understand what we're actually talking about. For most of the 20th century, I think most experts would say that males dominated much of the financial decisions in business and certainly in families.
And I can speak from my own upbringing as now I'm, you know, my mid 50s. Looking back, mom was always smarter than dad, but dad drove a lot of the financial decisions. I think that's just the way our society was. It doesn't make it good. It just meant that that's the way it became. And what we've seen is a longer longitudinal effect or change to this paradigm.
Women are actually more involved. What we see today as reality is not what it used to be. And the next generation of philanthropic decisions. Philanthropists will be more intentional when it comes to choosing women. And it's not trendy or symbolic. It's actually based on science, demographics, economics, family dynamics. This is not simply about gender. This is not simply about men or women.
This is about following where decisions are going to be made. And I think there's three rationales as to why we have to think about this. So we'll jump into the big picture. And then we're going to get down to as we try to. In each episode six, I believe tactical things that we can think about when we're kind of evaluating our relationship building process and how to do it more holistically with what the data tells us is going to happen.
So rationale number one, women are increasingly more involved in financial decisions. 50 years ago, you didn't see in the business world nearly enough women CEOs, CFOs, board members, leaders. There's a lot of an argument. We don't see enough of them today either. But there's obviously an incredibly more robust engagement for women in this decision making process in business.
And then in the home. The same is true and even more so. So in National research by FP board, looked at a lot of decision making process and found out that 69% of women say they are the primary decision maker in the household, and that 60% are now identifying themselves as the primary decision maker or leader when it comes to investment decisions.
You compare that to 30 or 50 years ago. It might have been 2% or some number that we just can't even imagine. Couples today make decisions together. When I think about the difference in this way between my parents and my wife and I to, I think hopefully, at least in my case, successful marriages, there are different dynamics, different time frames, different ways.
They were brought up, different cultural norms. As I mentioned, dad made most of those decisions. I'm sure mom had input, but we didn't hear it. As kids in my household. Certainly if I want to go buy a Diet Mountain Dew, which I do once or twice a day, I don't have a lot of input from my wife on that.
If I'm making a 5 or $10,000 decision, or certainly more, she's a part of the equation. Even though I may drive many of the financial discussions in our household, it's as much her money as is. Mine in many ways might be more hers. Most households are moving in that direction. That's what that data is telling us. Financial conversations are happening much more jointly.
It's about the ability for women to actually be listened to, which is probably smart, and that there is higher levels of professional and higher educational attainment for women than 50 years ago, as it should be, which means they have more invested and more voice in these decisions. So the implication is, is that if your organization is only cultivating the husband, the male, what you're preparing for is for yesterday, not tomorrow.
Rationale number two, and this is a little indirect, but I'll tie it together with rationale number three here. In a moment we're hearing more and more. You hear me talk about it. I work with clients all the time, kind of as a fractional plan giving officer with some of my clients, because they can pay me just a little bit and I can help them and guide the plan, giving conversations that they want people to have or possible that are interested in the, you know, estate conversations or issues that one might be dealing with, that there's this enormous wealth transfer.
We keep hearing about 100, 100, 20 million or trillion dollars. Excuse me, is going to change hands. That's really kind of incomplete. We have literally gone from four years ago or three years ago, and $83 trillion wealth transfer in the next 25 to 30 years, $224 trillion. It we're talking about two decades of a complete transformation about who holds the assets in the United States and around the world.
It's just not indicative of what fundraisers should be paying attention to. It's going to change the way decisions are reached, and that the real issue isn't really who controls today, but who will control in the future. Which brings us to rationale number three, simple demographics. Women are going to control this wealth transfer. Why? Simple. They live longer that if you have a 60, 70, 80 year old couple who works under a longstanding traditional model where the male makes most of the decisions from a demographics perspective, that male is going to die 3 to 5 years, depending on the year in data before the before the woman does, the spouse, the wife.
Now, if we're talking about same sex couples, that's going to be different. But the majority of relationships are male, female, not better or worse, just is. And that women will outlive men by several years and then makes them responsible for the decisions about this. At the end. Transfer of wealth. This is interesting from two perspectives. The first is what we mentioned is husband passes, wife lives actually.
The other thing is though is, is that when men are inheriting money, daughters refrain from their parents. It's kind of like a double wealth transfer. So if you think about it, they're not only going to be deciding wealth that may have been inherited. They're deciding the accumulation of wealth over time and that this has exponential effect as to who's making decisions at the end of the day.
And we'll get more into this. There's a lot of research on the fact that a surviving spouse will most likely stay somewhat true, particularly if it's a long standing relationship to the values the two of them had over time. But eventually the final decisions are being made by surviving spouses. And that these decisions are being made after the husband's death, actually.
And that if you only have a relationship with the husband or the male, you're leaving out 85 to 90% of the assets a family has because their chances are they're not going to give it to you, or at least most of it during their life. So if we're not concentrating on who's actually making decisions, then how are we actually maximizing the opportunities not only for the nonprofits we represent, more importantly, for the people who are trying to do something with that money to make the world a better place, however they define their community.
I've seen this with my own experience with my mom. She's very connected to my father three years past his death. He she misses him. She'll always be true to the things they believed, but she's making decisions that are influenced by her own perspective, and that includes estate decisions. So if you're not thinking about the surviving spouse, more likely the wife.
A double influence of impact when it comes to wealth transfer, what they inherit, as well as what they will decide based upon their acquisition in life, then you're leaving out an incredibly important moment that you will regret. Number one, it's the right thing to do. We should never assume that the male or female is the dominant decision maker in this process.
Heaven forbid we should ask like, hey, we'll get into this and the tactical ways for you to do this. How do we do this in a more meaningful way? How do we meet you where you are? And number two, just the demographics in the actuarial science. It's going to be women. Women are going to decide these things. Maybe that's a good thing because it'll make the world a better place.
So, as I tend to do, I always like to have six tactical things or between 4 and 6. Today is six, six tactical things that we can think about when it comes to doing this in a more meaningful, more appropriate, respectful way. Number one, it's not at the end, but at the beginning. We need to think about this as we're developing the relationships for doing this in the right way.
If we do what we actually believe that the relationship is long term longitudinal, it's not atm we need to build it with both of them, and in some way we need to push respectfully, appropriately into the conversation around one spouse, one member of the family being the sole donor. We need to treat them, the two of them, in equality, in significant conversations.
Notice I didn't say the same meaning. What are the opinions of both? And they will come out in different ways. We need to make sure that conversations that occur are for our own benefit as well as theirs, including both when we can. Would you like to have your wife join us? I'd love to spend some time with her.
Well, I'd love to hear her opinions on all of this. It's interesting. I have a client that I'm dealing with, and they're working through a large gift conversation with a potential donor, and it is very evident that in this case, the husband is totally against the idea of making the gift. We're not quite sure why. I think it's more has to do with the connection to the nonprofit, or he's just doesn't want philanthropy to be something that is a preeminent thought right now in his 80s, the wife's all dialed in.
And so by bringing in two, you're actually getting not only the appropriateness and the really what would I would think of as best practice as appropriate. You're bringing in the person with the passion. So the first thing is start at the beginning. Include the spouse when possible. Respectfully, can't push too hard. But we can ask. Number two is to ask both people questions.
I can think about countless conversations that I've had over my 30 years with a couple, and that the male dominates the conversation. And then if I'm smart enough, when I push a little bit more on the female side by asking questions, by saying, well, how do you feel about that? What matters to you most? What legacy? Do you want?
Is that aligned with what your husband just said? What I found is, is that there's a lot more influence going on than we realize, but there seems to be a respectful quietness from the wife. And frankly, it's kind of insulting to think they don't have opinions. They should. They're smart. They're engaged. They've been part of the equation in building this wealth or inheriting this wealth, particularly in long standing marriages.
They've been equal partners. And maybe I would say in my family, even though my wife isn't working. She contributes more to what I'm doing here every day because she's so spectacular, making sure the house is okay and the kids are being raised, which is far more difficult and far more important. So if you don't think that I vote no value her, that's crazy.
Why aren't we having that? How do we deliberately invite both perspectives so that we hear it, and that we engage in it so that both people feel like they're part of it? At the end of the day, they'll make their determination as to who's going to make the decision, and that's fine. We have a responsibility to at least ask some questions.
Number three, are you creating opportunity? Programing messaging, however you want to put it that speaks to a woman's interest.
We assume all too often that everything we do is financial or organizational related to strategy, outcomes, impact, and that that's what everybody wants. Yet we have studies that say, and I think it shows depth. We're paying attention that women more strongly respond to things like stories impact the beneficiaries long term mission, that they have a little bit different view.
So if we know that and we can show that and we can, why aren't we doing things that represent that, that connect to that, that show that that doesn't mean women are more emotional instead of strategic. Frankly, I think it's kind of the opposite. What it means is, is they have an innate ability, probably more so than males, to actually evaluate impact and values together.
I think back again about that 30 years and how many pure financial conversations that I have with males. More often than not, it was that. But there's a depth that comes when you actually get into what I think scientifically is a much deeper, more meaningful way of looking at philanthropy. A woman's view stories impact beneficiaries mission, in all of which combined together, create a more robust reason rationale why people give.
That's how you get to transformational. We've been focusing on the wrong gender.
Number four prepare a surviving spouse. More likely than not actually a woman, a widow in the relationship before it actually happens. We tend to think about if the male had taken the lead that, oh, you know, when there's a passing and it's the husband, we'll just pivot to the wife. Well, how disrespectful is that kind of insulting, to be honest, if we're not involving her in this process, then what we're doing is we're cutting off our nose despite our face.
We want her, the surviving spouse, to know about the organization leadership mission. Want to know more about what she feels and how she feels about it, and why this is important, or if it's important at all. If she knows a little bit about us, when you're building the relationship, you're actually building trust with her as well. Don't forget, actually women are going to make most of these decisions in the in the finale.
I think we should respect the people that are our donors regardless. But at the end of the day, with all of this, well, transfer and women going to be the ones who decide it in a world where that's more common, which is good. Hey, if you're not building that relationship as you go with them, that's kind of not very smart.
Number five, there will be a moment, actually, where the husband dies. And how you handle this is critically important. It's about leading with care, not for the gift, but for the person. It's about listening more grieves in different ways, and it may take six months, a year, multiple years for surviving spouse to actually work through how they feel about not only the loss, but how they're going to choose to live their life and what things they want to be involved with.
And the worst thing you can do is engage in some type of save your moment where I can help you with your estate planning. I went through this with mom. In this case, it wasn't a fundraiser, it was a son. But once I was really comfortable that and had some pretty knowledge that helped that mom was protected and that the estate plans, God forbid something happened to her very quickly after dad died would be intact.
I backed off whatever the decisions were, were not mine to make in the first place. But if you try to push too hard, I can tell you there is so much grief and so much trying to figure out how to relive and rebuild, and particularly long standing marriages where all of a sudden where they've spent a lot of time together, all of a sudden they're trying to figure out who they are as an individual.
Again, that is not an easy process. So you have to know that you have to move slowly. You want to if you can reconnect to the mission and the reasons that they were engaged. Before you ever talk about future philanthropy, think about the ultimate steward not only of the relationship, but of someone's future life that you can maybe a part of.
Number six recognize that those who survive, particularly the because of actuarial science. I keep coming back to that. It's not a broken record. It's just data that widows are going to redefine philanthropy. They may continue that family tradition. Many do things that were important to them. So a church that they continue, that the widow continues to attend, or the filling to be that they both did, or that things that they were involved with.
But there's nuances that come out of this. Number one is while they may choose to continue to give, do they give at the same levels or to something that they're already giving to become more important? Because the surviving spouse, the widow, values that more? The second thing is, is that there could be other nonprofit charitable priorities that come in as they learn who they are and how they want to grow for the rest of their lives.
Neither of these is incorrect or immoral, but we have to know that these things are possible. And so your role, if done correctly, is much like the role as a son that I view my connection in this area to my mother. I'm there to help. How do I help them express their own values, their own decisions? How do we help them get to do whatever it is they want to do?
Six things build as you go from the beginning. Ask both people questions to find out more about both of them and why they connect. Number three create programing that actually speaks to women. Number four, prepare kind of the thought process or the or the relationship before the passing. Don't wait till afterwards. Which kind of parallels to number one.
Number five is one. This moment happens. We're just there to be stewards of helping people move through this whatever way you can or however you should or not. That it's not about the dollars or the gifts, it's about leading with care and genuineness, and about listening more and not getting into the details of estate planning. And lastly, recognize that widows surviving spouses will make decisions on their own.
Things will change. Adjust. The next generation of fundraising isn't simply about younger donors. It's understanding who's going to make the decisions. And the data tells us that it's going to be women who make the decisions more often than not, and that that will cause us to decide how we treat these moments. Are we actually stewarding? Are we actually connecting to both?
Are we creating opportunity for people to continue that philanthropy, that connection in a way that is meaningful to a widow, that it goes deeper than you know? Well, let's just identify the next male multi generation, know. For decades, fundraisers have asks who writes the check over the next 25 years or so, maybe a little longer. The best question will be who shapes the family legacy?
Increasingly, that answer is pretty simple and maybe beneficial to the world. It's women, and that's why you should probably look around and see what you're doing, to see if you are building the relationships that are longstanding, legitimate, and include that surviving spouse or that widow someday to continue their journey with you to do what they want to do to make the world a better place.
Don't forget to check out the blogs@Hallettphilanthropy.com. Two per week. Hallett Philanthropy Backslash Blogs. You can get an RSS feed right to you. Post certain things on LinkedIn and others that are related. But a great way to get Tuesday Thursday something to think about. I read don't reach podcast level, but there may be worth something to think about.
Both leadership, personal stories, Lilienthal, all kinds of stuff. If you'd like to reach out to me, it's podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. Believe it or not, I don't mean to sound like Uncle Sam. We need you. And we. That's all of us. Your community, the nonprofit, the people and the places that your nonprofit serves. We need you. You are critical.
Remember, some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. Then there are those who wondered what happened. We need you to be someone who makes things happen. And it's critical because you're serving this whole between government, which I always talk about, who's not very efficient and for profit, free enterprise, who does want to do certain things, the chasm between the two.
That's where nonprofits live to take care of those, the underserved, the not heard, the causes that aren't glorious but important. You make that difference by being someone who makes things happen. You find the partnerships in the community who are doing just the same, who are looking to make their impact through the nonprofit, through you, to make a difference that's worthwhile, that's critical.
We need you. Just like we need donors. Whether you're a CPO, a database administrator, a major gift officer or CEO, whatever volunteer board member, we need you to be great. And I hope when I do this little educational classroom of the 21st century every week, you get little tidbits that can help you do that because you play an important role, and without you, somebody else is going to go without.
And that's a sad place in the world. Just think about the joy that you bring by doing what you do every day. I look forward to seeing you next time, right back here on the next edition of Around with Randall. And don't forget. Make it a great day.