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Generosity Ambassador
170 Plays1 year ago
In this thought-provoking episode, hosts Phillip Ramsey and old friend of the show Dan Navarro delve into the concept of transformational giving, discussing its significance and how to practice generosity with intelligence and enthusiasm. We are introduced to Verne Murray, whose stories and insights provide practical approaches to generosity that can shift our typical understanding of wealth accumulation.
We start by exploring the difference between transactional and transformational giving, learning how the latter can enrich lives far beyond the monetary aspect. Verne shares his personal giving story that highlights the biblical principle of putting giving at the forefront, leading to a heart transformation and a deeper understanding of stewardship.
Key Takeaways:
- Transformational giving is focused on making a meaningful impact and involves a deep connection between the giver and their values.
- Stewardship is a central theme; it's not just about the amount given, but the heart and intention behind the giving.
- Effective giving should use both the heart and the mind, utilizing tools like donor-advised funds to maximize generosity.
- Early engagement with financial planning for giving is crucial for maximizing the potential impact of one's charitable efforts.
- The legacy of generosity is not just measured in terms of wealth transferred but also in the values and experiences that are passed on to future generations.
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Transcript
Introduction to Uncommon Wealth Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Everyone dreams of living an uncommon life and the best asset you have to achieve your dreams is you Welcome to the uncommon wealth podcast We're going to introduce you the people who are living uncommonly We're also going to give you some tools and strategies for building wealth and for pursuing an uncommon path That is uniquely right for you
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of the Uncomma Wealth Podcast where I'm your host, Phillip Ramsey, and we have two other people on the air today. Couldn't be more excited about unpacking this. As you know, and this is why you tune in, we try to give people little tips and tricks to try to be uncommon. And what does that mean? Well, there's a lot of things that means, but today we're talking about transformational giving.
00:00:48
Speaker
and giving generously. Holy cow, that's uncommon because it's not our money anyway. So I have Dan Navara online and we have Vern Murray.
00:01:00
Speaker
and we
What is Transformational Giving?
00:01:01
Speaker
have a lot to unpack, but if you remember, Dan is no stranger to the show. He's been on it before and we were talking about donor advice funds, some tool that we like to use for those people that really want to give generously and really have that charitable mind focus. So Dan, welcome back to the show, my man. Great to have you.
00:01:23
Speaker
Dude, it's so good to be back. Thank you for having us. Excited for all the good things that are going to come from this. I love how uncommon it is to just give away the thing that you're trying to help people grow in their investment portfolio. It's like so total countercultural. And that's why I love this podcast.
00:01:39
Speaker
It really is because as you start like just looking at the can that you have accumulated and you try to protect the can you missing it completely like you're missing the opportunities of one impacting somebody else so for the people that i've seen in my life in your history is the same people that are starting to think.
00:01:56
Speaker
in a generous manner and try to transform other people's lives, they actually benefit far more than anything that the can can actually hold. And so you've brought a guest on the show that I cannot wait to hear more about. So I'll
Vern's Early Giving Journey
00:02:11
Speaker
let you introduce them however you want to. But basically, this is your show, man. You do what you want at this point.
00:02:16
Speaker
Awesome. Well, I brought with me Vern Murray and Vern will share his, his story, his giving story in a second. Vern's official unofficial title with the National Christian Foundation, who, who I work for from nine to five. Vern is our ad hoc volunteer generosity ambassador. He is the guy I tell people, he just likes telling people about Jesus and generosity. And it's the same person for him because
00:02:45
Speaker
John 3 16 right God so loved the world that he did what he gave his only son and so I'm excited for people to get to hear Vern story and you have Vernon I know each other for a couple of decades where you go back a long ways our families are intertwined and It's it's a pleasure to work alongside Vern in the generosity space and
00:03:08
Speaker
Dude, welcome to the show, Vern. Let's go. Great to be here. Thank you, Phil. Dan, thank you for the nice introduction, the checks in the mail. I appreciate it. So what I'd like to do, Phil, as I can, is just kind of share with your listeners my giving, how God took we, took our family from transactional givers into transformational givers. Is that okay?
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean,
The Bonus Promise Story
00:03:31
Speaker
and I would just say like the fact that you get introduced as the transformational giver, that's a big, that's a big compliment. It's a lot of formability, Phil. I mean, come on. Well, good for you. I just think that's really a cool honor. So that's a really uncommon legacy in and of itself. Well, let me, let me start. It goes, the start of this is a little over 41 years ago. That's when my wife and I, Melody got married and, uh,
00:03:59
Speaker
When we were dating and got engaged, we had been given some counsel because I was a brand new Christian, and she was a very mature Christian, that we should get some premarital counseling. And we did, and it was super helpful. But I have to tell you in that whole process,
00:04:15
Speaker
They never really talked about money, and I didn't think much about it. Well, about three weeks after our honeymoon, I came home from work a little early one day, and my wife is sitting on the end of the bed with her checkbook open, writing a check. And I said, honey, what are you doing? She said, well, I'm writing our tithe checks. And I said, well, that's cool. What's a tithe check?
Discovering Donor-Advised Funds
00:04:36
Speaker
So she basically did a Bible, shows me the scripture. I'm like, okay, that works for me.
00:04:41
Speaker
I said, but can we do this at the end of the month when all the bills are paid? I mean, I'm cool with giving money to God. And she said, no. I said, what do you mean no? She said, we are first fruits giver. I said, okay, great. Takes me back to the Bible.
00:04:57
Speaker
shows me that whole thing and I said all right well that's all good but what happens at the end of the month when there's no money in the checkbook to pay the final bills because you've given it away she says she just looks at me smile on her face and says well god will provide well what do you do with that Phil you're done okay so that kind of began our journey it's kind of the trump card you know like all right can't really do much about
00:05:19
Speaker
I'm going to tell you the other trump card. Then she looks me in the eye and she says, I not only tied on my paycheck, I tied on your paycheck. And at the time she made more money than I did. So that began, so I unpack that story for you, that began our giving journey. And it was, you know, I had no resentment. It was just what you're supposed to do. But I also tell you, it didn't have a lot of joy. What I came to understand along that journey is that giving is not what God wants from me.
00:05:49
Speaker
Giving is not what God wants from me. Giving is what God wants
Journey of Generosity Transformation
00:05:53
Speaker
for me. Because the truth is, what God wants is our heart.
00:05:59
Speaker
And he knows money is the journey that we pass through to get there. I mean, Phil, Dan, we know scripture. Scripture says our father owns a cattle on a thousand hills. Do we think for one minute, if we don't tithe, that God's will is gonna be thwarted? I don't think so. I don't think so. He doesn't need our money. He doesn't need our possessions. What he wants is our heart. As a matter of fact, back in 1973, Howard Dayton,
00:06:27
Speaker
did this process where he cataloged all 2,350 verses in the Bible as it relates to money and possessions. Well, yeah, that's a lot of verses, but it's two times that category, money and possessions is
00:06:44
Speaker
The Scripture reference to that is twice as much as any other two categories combined. Do you think God knew what we would struggle with? I mean, the truth is we're all on a journey.
00:07:00
Speaker
We're all in different places, but we at NCF are just guides. We're not experts. We don't tell you who to give, how much to give, when to give. We're just to help guide, to walk with you along in the process. As you might expect, after that experience, it wasn't too much longer.
00:07:16
Speaker
that I was in a Bible study with a gentleman named Bob Shank. And Bob is really, he's a legend in Southern California. Started a priority living, was a pastor, just an extraordinary, extraordinarily gifted, gifted teacher. And so I went to Bible study one day with my buddies and Bob says, we're going to do a little exercise today. It's called, how big is your box? And I looked at him and go, Bob, what do you mean how big is our box? He says, if you don't stop today,
00:07:42
Speaker
I was in my 20s. If you don't stop today and define what success looks like for you, as God continues to bless you and grow your wealth, you'll go right past it and you'll never even stop.
00:07:56
Speaker
and give him the praise and glory. And he said, what you're likely to do if you don't do this exercise well, is you're likely to take that increased wealth and increase your standard of living. The question you should be asking, God, are you asking me to increase my standard of giving? No, we're not here to answer that for you. But again, I know in life, Phil, if you don't ask the right questions, you're pretty unlikely
00:08:22
Speaker
finding the right answers. Time
Strategies for Impactful Giving
00:08:26
Speaker
goes on and we're just trying to be good stewards. We're a young family, we're moving things along. Well, it was some time later, not
00:08:37
Speaker
not right afterwards, but our firm, the firm that I was an owner in, part owner got sold, got sold to Deutsche Bank. And the deal was the seller, the previous owner, had to pay us senior executives a retention bonus to stay one year. They wanted to make sure that the talent didn't leave with the acquisition. You're very familiar with that in your business. Absolutely. Very common.
00:09:03
Speaker
about nine months in, I'd come to the conclusion that I really, really didn't want to work for the Germans. I really, really did want to work for the Swiss. And so I interviewed with Credit Suisse, and they wanted to hire me, and we did a whole deal. And I said, but this is one little glitch, guys. I have this significant six-figure bonus
00:09:26
Speaker
do me like in November and I want to stay until the bonus and they come. They said, no problem, we'll pay you the bonus. Right. I kind of thought in the back of my head, you know, just depending on how the timing goes, there's a one in 10, one in 100 chance that I could end up with both bonuses. So I made a little deal with God. I said, God, if that happens, it's a long shot. No, no funny business here. If that happens, I'm going to give you one whole bonus.
00:09:52
Speaker
Cool. An entire six-figure bonus. Bonus. Right. I keep going on my way. You got to negotiate the contract and all. So the day comes. It's before the bonus is due. I give my notice to Deutsche Bank and say, I'm leaving. I'm going over here. They said, great, as the security guard escorted me out of the office with my box of goodies. End of story. No double bonus. My bar. I get out.
00:10:18
Speaker
I get home the next morning, I get a call from New York and said, Mr. Murray, you are mistaken. I said, What do you mean? He said, Well, your contract calls for 30 days notice. So yesterday was your official notice date. But you cannot go to work for anybody else. And you can you certainly cannot come back in our office. So you're basically nice for 30 days. Well, that 30 days pushed me over. You got paid the bonus. Yeah, Deutsche Bank wasn't paying the bonus. The selling company was right.
00:10:46
Speaker
So cool. So I get the second bonus. I already got the money from Credit Suisse. It's now the end of November. I'm a pretty happy camper. Remember my deal with God.
00:10:57
Speaker
I made one mistake. You're almost a W2 guy. You get a six-figure bonus. More than 50% comes out in tax. Yeah, it sure does. I'm trying to renegotiate with that. I said, God, I forgot about this whole tax thing. Can we maybe do a payment plan? I can totally relate to this, by the way, Ferd. I'd be like, that would be totally something I would do. I'll just give you a net. I won't keep a penny.
00:11:21
Speaker
It got very clearly said to me, no, that wasn't our deal. He said something else and he said, do you tithe on your gross or your net? Why should I tithe on the gross? He said, end of story. We figured that all out. Got that solved. But I had to have the tax deduction that year to offset the income. You know how that
Family Involvement in Giving
00:11:41
Speaker
works.
00:11:43
Speaker
It's now the second, almost the second week in December. December in the investment banking world, especially in the real estate side, is the busiest. Yeah, crazy. Your end is a real deadline. It's not a real deadline.
00:11:56
Speaker
I said, I don't have any idea who to give this money to, how much, I just don't have time to take that into my grid to process that. I called a friend of mine, Paul Neff, in Southern California. I said, Paul, you have this private foundation, Servants Heart, can I just park this money there so I get the tax election this year? I'll tell you next year who to give it to. He goes, no, I was getting a lot of no's back then, Phil.
00:12:18
Speaker
And I said, well, why don't you open a donor buys fund with NCF? I said, well, what's that? I mean, literally, yeah, 20 minutes later online.
00:12:30
Speaker
Donor is done open to six figure bonuses on its way on an age or whatever, and it's done. So, so, you know, I like to talk about, you know, kind of this, how that's how I learned about a donor advice, but I like to talk about some of the benefits. Dan, have you already done that previously? Should I, should I leave that to you or? Yes.
00:12:49
Speaker
skip the donor advise fund stuff, just keep telling your story. I mean, honestly, we have a whole episode on donor advise funds that we'll make reference to. Maybe I'll tell one tip or trick at the end, but you just keep telling your story, Vern, because it's much better than the donor advise funds. But I will say just quickly, like how quickly a donor advise fund can be established and then funded.
00:13:10
Speaker
which I think could be a very beneficial tip quickly for those people at the end of the year. Big eyes of like, how do I do this? Well, you can do it quickly. Go ahead. I was gonna say, you don't need a social security number or like private foundations require their own tax return. This is literally, it's like going and buying something on Amazon. It takes minutes to open. You need a date of birth and a phone number. Easier than opening a checking account at a bank by the multiple of Forex.
00:13:40
Speaker
And then what I did was I just linked mine to my checking account or my savings account from my bank and sent an electronic funds transfer. Like your giving is marked easily. And so it's it's an expert way to do this. And then you have access to it if you need to secure deduction. Very good, Philip. Very good.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yes, it's a very, very powerful tool. One of the things I do sometimes at the end of the year is I'll do my year-end giving with a credit card if I'm trying to get to the next level of miles for a bonus with Southwest Airlines or something. Not all the time, but you can do that. There's a small fee, but incredible flexibility, incredible security, incredible convenience, and there's more. But anyway, so I'll stop on that.
00:14:22
Speaker
get me started down a whole different avenue. So anyway, about a dozen years ago, so we're moving along on our journey, and we're just continuing to give, trying to be good stewards and all that stuff. And about a dozen years ago, about 12 years ago, I was invited to attend what's called a jog. And if you could see me, folks, you would know that's not running at a fast peak. That's not me.
00:14:45
Speaker
JOG stands for Journey of Generosity. It's basically a 24-hour overnight experience sponsored by generous giving, paid for by somebody else, where like-minded believers of all levels of maturity and age and wealth gather and have honest and open conversations about what God has to say about our money and possessions.
00:15:07
Speaker
and you hear these incredibly encouraging stories. And I got invited by my senior pastor, Scott Farmer. He invited me once, I'm like, nah, I'm not spending my Friday and Saturday doing that, no way. Not interested, thanks. Then he called me again, I didn't return his phone call. And then he called me a third time and I'm thinking, and my wife's looking, if your senior pastor invites you to something three times, you best go. And so we went, it was down in San Jose. I have to tell you, Phil,
00:15:36
Speaker
I had one of the best experiences of my life. I mean, let's face it, money, politics, not talking about, not spoken about from the pulpit. And so I go to this and it's being conducted by Todd Harper, who at the time was the president of generous
Real-Life Strategic Giving Examples
00:15:51
Speaker
giving. He was our facilitator and literally at the end, it almost makes me weep when I think about it, literally at the end, I was weeping and I went up to Todd and I said, Todd, oh my gosh, I wish I'd known this 20 years ago. It would have changed.
00:16:07
Speaker
I would have changed everything from because of the truth is, it wouldn't have changed what we gave Phil. We were already trying to be generous, but we were a young family. I'm trying to save for college, for retirement, pay off debt, live well, be obedient, but it would have changed my heart. That's when the transformation took place and it was so incredible that, I mean, really what generous giving did and what they still do,
00:16:35
Speaker
They help you discover your why. Guys like you, NCF, we're all about the how, but the how doesn't matter until you have your why.
00:16:52
Speaker
how are you going to go about fighting it? I've had no better experience since then, and I went on to be a facilitator. I facilitated over 30 jobs. I'm a little bit of a slow learner, but I've done them for graduate students at Berkeley, Haas School of Business, Wheat College, all kinds of groups, churches. Still one of my favorite things to do, but it basically helps you discover your why.
00:17:18
Speaker
Because, as I said, generous giving is the why, and NCF, and guys like you are the how. And the when is between you and God. You know, and I'm just telling you, at that time, God got a hold of my heart, and it changed everything. But the question becomes now, how do I have had this heart transformation? How do I get smart? How do I start
00:17:38
Speaker
thinking about using my brain and not just my heart to give. How can I look into some tools? And so that began my journey with NCF. And as I shared with you kind of at the beginning, just about every tool that we have at NCF I've done, I've given stock, I've given real estate, I've given limited partnership interests, I've given cash, credit card. I haven't given a business because I said in the beginning, I've always been a W2 guy. So I just call that kind of use your brain and not just your heart. And so I'm just,
00:18:06
Speaker
share with you a couple of stories that I have along the way. One of them is a really dear friend of mine. He's like 82 or 83. Our wives go to book club.
00:18:18
Speaker
once a month on Tuesday. And so we always get together at this funky old roadhouse and we have a glass of wine and we play dominoes. But I'm always talking about this stuff. It's gonna be you and me, Dan. It's gonna be you and me. It's so uncommon. I love it. Hey, fellas, wanna play dominoes and have a glass of wine? I'm in. I'm in. That's all you have to say. I'll know.
00:18:37
Speaker
So anyway, I was just talking to him about RMDs. One of my favorite tools is the IRA, because I can show people how to get their money out of their IRA. It goes in tax-free, grows tax-free. I can show people how to get money out of their IRA without being a Roth, tax-free. But that's another conversation. Anyway, I was just talking to him about RMDs. When you reach age 71.5, the government tells you how much you have to take out of your IRA, called RMD, required minimum distribution.
00:19:05
Speaker
I was talking to Casey about his and I said now Casey, I just assume
00:19:10
Speaker
within your RMD, you're doing your giving with your QCD. He looked at me with a blank stare. He'd only had one glass of wine. And he said, I said, that's a qualified charitable distribution, meaning you can give up to $100,000 out of your RMD or your IRA every year to a charity or charities. You can't give it to your DAF. Has to go directly to the charity. But the good news is it never comes in as income and it goes out as an expense. It's an off-book transaction.
00:19:39
Speaker
He said, no one ever told me that. This man, for virtually 15 years, had been taking his heart, paying the tax, and giving off of that. The saddest thing I hear of Phil every day, and it breaks my heart, is, I wish I'd known that. No one ever told me that.
00:19:58
Speaker
I sold my business last month last year. I had a
Creating a Legacy Through Generosity
00:20:01
Speaker
call two days ago with a client who's in contract to sell his business in the tens of millions of dollars, most of which is gained, and he's five days away from closing. Dan ran the model. The difference for the kingdom, what was it? A million and a half difference for the kingdom, Dan? The economics were not good because he's going to have to give cash afterwards, which is great, but he could have given more if he had done it in advance.
00:20:27
Speaker
I want to share a couple other stories because it kind of illustrates. So my wife and I used to go to Cuba for ministry, and that got shut down. That was our international ministry. That got shut down with COVID. And so we got invited by some friends to go to Mexico with YWAM Baja and build a house. And a great boy down there had a fabulous time with their friends, met Sean Lambert, the president of YWAM Baja, amazing guy, incredible heart.
00:20:50
Speaker
And so I just, like I do with everybody, kind of told them my story and what I'm passionate about. About a week later, I get home and I get a call from Shawn. He says, Verne, I got a donor. Verne wants to donate his 1969 classic Camaro. He thinks it's worth about $100,000. Can we do that? I said, well, let me call my team and get back to what I did. I said, you absolutely can do it, Shawn, but it must be done. It's not difficult.
00:21:13
Speaker
Must be done in a very precise way because if you don't if not, you're gonna violate his deduction So first thing we did was get it appraised didn't appraise for 100 appraise for 82. Okay, fine guy donated it But here is the real risk This guy was the original owner
00:21:30
Speaker
He did all the work himself, it was perfect. But his basis in that vehicle was somewhere south, somewhere less than $20,000. So if it wasn't handled properly, his $82,000 donation would turn into a $20,000 donation. He would not be happy. And one of the conditions was, Sean had to drive, had to keep the car for a year and a day, which he did. I have pictures of him driving around San Diego in this beautiful black convertible. We're all having a time.
00:21:57
Speaker
Try to break down to the my next why we have a bit in mexico but he couldn't get insurance to get it across the border so i didn't get to see it. And then i think he auctioned office holder for over a hundred thousand dollars so. Yeah i got an eighty two thousand dollar deduction the mystery got a hundred thousand dollars and the donor space is less than twenty thousand dollars that's the kind of stuff we do but the key.
00:22:18
Speaker
If anybody who's listening to this podcast, if you hear nothing else about what I'm about, except what I'm about to tell you, it can change your life. The key is you've got to engage with us early. The single biggest mistake people make is they think about this when they already have a letter of intent, they're already in contract, they've already made a decision. I'm sorry, folks, for the IRS, you're done. Pack up your bags, do after-after tax giving and lose
00:22:47
Speaker
three, four, five to one leverage that you can get. So anyway, I'll get off my soapbox. As I said before, giving is not what God wants from me. Giving is what God wants for me. You see, it's a heart issue. Make that personal for us for a second though. Share a couple stories for you that have moved your heart. You want me to share the wedding one?
00:23:10
Speaker
Well, you can share whatever stories you want. This is the story that is the most impactful to me. So I'm going to go with that. So at our house, it's a little funky. You've got to go through the laundry room to get to the garage where the car is. And the right side of the laundry room, there's a mirror.
00:23:30
Speaker
We've been there forever. We've been in this house 31 years. There's two pictures taped to that mirror. One is a picture of Sebbly. Sebbly's a little girl in Centauro Village, Ethiopia, that we've been sort of supporting since she was a little girl. Our kids participated and she's fully grown. And then the other picture is a picture of Maria standing on the foundation of her house in Tijuana that will be the house that we built and finished three days later.
00:23:58
Speaker
So Phil, I walk out of the house, not every day, but a lot of days, and I look at those pictures, and I have to ask myself this question. Does God love me more than He loves Sebley or Maria? And the only answer I can find in the Bible is no. If I hold that to be a biblical truth, and I do, then I have to ask myself this question. If that's true, why is it that I have so much, that I have so little?
00:24:28
Speaker
And the only thing I've been able to find in the Bible so far is... Give it away. God has entrusted me the stewardship. Because if I'm an owner, Phil, if I'm an owner, I can do anything I want with it. The role of a steward is a much higher calling than the role of an owner. Because you see, when I get to heaven, he's not going to ask me how I did compared to Dan. I would fail that test.
00:24:56
Speaker
But what he will ask me is, what did you do with what I gave you? Yeah, we're a good steward. Yeah, good steward. And it's not about how much. This is not about those that write big checks versus those who write small checks. And so... I do think you're right with the heart issue. I mean, in the Bible, when the poor woman gives one penny, like,
00:25:18
Speaker
He was all about that. It's a hard issue and she gave half of what she owns. That's what he wanted to highlight in that story.
00:25:28
Speaker
Well, as I like to say in wrapping up, I have never met an unhappy, generous person. He brings tremendous joy. I've never met a formerly generous person, someone who's formerly generous and is not now. As a matter of fact, it's pretty inescapable. We live in a material world. There really isn't any place you can go in America that you're not impacted by the materialism that drives our economy. It just is what it is. You're not going to go live in a cave.
00:25:54
Speaker
As a matter of fact, I think Madonna wrote a song about it. I think it's called, I'm a Material Girl in the Material World. Anyway... Don't sing it. Don't sing it. No, I don't sing it for you. But there is an antidote for materialism, and we can't escape it, but the antidote is generosity. Generosity is the total offset
00:26:14
Speaker
to materialism. So basically, transformational giving transforms. What is God teaching me now? I've struggled. I'm 69 years old. I've built up some assets that I live off the income. Just was on a call with Dan and Paul Gibson yesterday. I'm in the process of struggling now. How do we figure out how to give those assets away, but make sure we have enough?
00:26:38
Speaker
And so, you know, basically,
Countering Materialism with Generosity
00:26:41
Speaker
you know, and we do this as a family because it really impacts our kids, really bring them into the process. I want to share one last, one last thing with you. So we went through a season with our kids. It was, we have six grandchildren now, so it was a season ago, but we're all of our kids friends were getting married and we got invited. We were pretty good friends with most of them. So we got invited to the wedding and we really struggled with what do we get these kids for a wedding gift?
00:27:05
Speaker
They don't need any more china or silver. They don't want this stuff to begin with. They don't need more towels or pots and pans. We came up with the idea, we'll give them a donor advice fund. We started giving away $1,000 to $3,000 donor advice funds, depending on the kid. We'd write them a little note and say, look, we would never spend that much money on a wedding gift for you. Love you, but not that much.
00:27:28
Speaker
But we want you to have this tool to help you and start you as you're starting your life together to start you down this road of generosity and giving. And it was very well received. And then I made this deal with my daughter right before her wedding. I said, your mom and I are going to give you a donor advice fund in the amount of $5,000. She was my daughter, so that made sense. But I said, I'm going to sweeten the pot for you.
00:27:55
Speaker
Your mom and I will match dollar for dollar what you put in the first year, no limit.
00:28:02
Speaker
They weren't very wealthy, but they managed to scrape together $16,552. She got another $16,552 from her mom, plus the $5,000. Now, she had $38,000. I'll never forget her coming to me. She said, Dad, what you did for us is you helped us
00:28:25
Speaker
understand the significance of giving. We now feel like we have a tool to work with where we can make a difference. Whereas before just writing a check and dropping it in the basket, we just didn't have any connection to it. So that's part of our whole thing with NCF is transformational giving, helping people on the journey, discovering your why,
00:28:48
Speaker
And then we've got tools and tips and tricks, as you spoke of about early in the podcast, that basically move you from addition to multiplication. That's what we do. That's myself. Do it. I like it. Have you ever read the book, The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn? The Treasure Principle is used in a 30 question questionnaire on our jobs overnight. Yes. I can practically recite the book to you.
00:29:15
Speaker
It's pretty powerful. For those who have not listened to it, if there's one thing that you want to just take a step forward of generosity, because everyone, I like that. We all have a giving journey. And so if this is new to you, you almost have to look at it in a different perspective.
00:29:30
Speaker
because it does get very scary quickly. But I, again, like I've never heard of anybody who over gave and unhappy now that they're giving. So this book does a really good job of kind of helping walk through that. And as a financial advisor and securities licensed, I can't really guarantee any rate of return.
00:29:51
Speaker
But in the book, Randy Alcourt, he's like, I give you the best rate of return, it's guaranteed. And it's to give your money. And like, watch that be something for the next life. And that's the way that you transition into this mindset, this heart that is pleasing and joyful. And it's powerful that you are paying it forward into eternity when you are giving financially.
00:30:17
Speaker
I love it. Phil, I've never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul. I mean, you can't take it with you. I would say to your listeners not knowing who they are, if you're not giving today, again, that's okay. But if you're having trouble starting small, start with 1% or 2% or 5%, whatever it is. Whatever is a stretch for you, stretch.
00:30:44
Speaker
and trust God for the difference. Not a lot of guarantees, but I'll guarantee you'll show up. So don't wait five years to start because that's when you think you can start giving 10%. Give what you can give today with a joyful heart.
00:31:00
Speaker
Yep. And I would say, at Christmas, are you more excited to give or get presents? Give, right? There is something about giving that is, it's just something that happens in your heart and it's biblical in all of our opinion. So take our advice.
00:31:18
Speaker
So, Dan, let's talk. I love NCF. Obviously, we have clients that have used NCF. How, one, I love, thank you for just the way that you get excited about it. Vern, I love that they call you a generosity ambassador. I feel like you're great at that. What are some just quick, I guess, highlights on a donor advice fund or different ways that you can partner with, not only my clients, but any listener out there?
00:31:44
Speaker
Sure, I think the important thing to realize is a lot of people think, oh, I got to give and they pull out their checkbook and that's fine for like just to be a giver, but you can get sophisticated with your with your philanthropy to use a couple five dollar words there.
00:31:59
Speaker
you can get sophisticated with your philanthropy. And there are some really great tools and best practices that the donor advise fund can unlock for you. So not just giving cash, but giving, you know, appreciated securities. And therefore you're giving away the cap gains that you have on those securities. If you were to sell them to go fund your charitable giving over here, giving out of your IRA by using a QCD instead of
00:32:23
Speaker
just taking the distribution paying the tax and then giving what you have left over and then most people don't realize you can actually give real estate and business interests and get a fair market value charitable deduction for the stake that you're giving you have to give the whole thing you can give a percentage piece.
00:32:41
Speaker
and get a fair market value deduction. And then when NCF is the nonprofit who is partnering with you in the transaction, when we sell those assets, we don't pay the taxes like you do. And so you're taking the embedded taxes and you're giving it to ministry and charity rather than giving it to the government. Just people need to understand that there are opportunities to get help in their philanthropy
00:33:05
Speaker
guys like phillip are very uncommon that they're actually trying to maximize generosity that's not really you know i like to tell people an investment advisors job is to grow the barn my job to help you give the barn away. I love that i love that phillip likes to help people grow their barn so that they can do great things with the barn.
00:33:24
Speaker
And not just for their family, though that's important, but do it for a greater purpose, like the kingdom of God.
Conclusion: Building an Uncommon Legacy
00:33:31
Speaker
So that's kind of the important thing I hope people take away. Give with your heart, but use your head, too, as Vern said, alluded to earlier. Yeah, a very sexy word right now. I don't know if that's the right word, but is legacy. What is your legacy? And let's talk about a legacy. The people that transition wealth and finances. It's my way to see something go. Oh, can you see that? I can't see that, Vern. Oh, legacy.
00:33:54
Speaker
Like people following Jesus the people that are just focused on the money component of the legacy two generations it statistically show poof gone gone but the people that are are focusing on generosity
00:34:11
Speaker
And in instilling that, like Vern, the story that you said about your daughter, now that's a legacy that I wanna produce. That's an uncommon legacy. A legacy that's filled with joy and generosity, impacting others, and watching God transform your heart. Now that's a legacy. It has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with transitioning hearts and impacting other people in a powerful way. That's an uncommon legacy.
00:34:40
Speaker
For sure. The common American way of doing inheritance is you got two kids, divide it 50-50, give it to your kids. And that's your legacy with them. And I mean, Vern and I talk about this all the time, and we talk about it with givers all the time. What if you capped inheritance and told your kids what their inheritance was, and whatever's left, you're going to give it away while you're alive, or give it away at death, or help your kids give it away, right? It's a great vehicle for passing values to the next generation.
00:35:09
Speaker
and the generation after that. That's so good. And so this is what I'd like to, all the listeners that are listening, and I imagine there's probably going to be a lot because people love Vern. Dan and I are like, meh. Okay. Vern. So here's the deal. I, I have four components of, of, of like wealth, right? We're talking about wealth transferring to the next generation. Here they are. Your core values. Your core values. Okay. There's one component. Your good and bad experiences. There's two.
00:35:40
Speaker
your charitable giving in the way that you give your time, talents, and resources, that's three, and then your money, okay? So there's the four. I'll go over them again. Core values, good and bad experiences, charitable giving, and money. If you could only transition three of those to the next generation, what would it be? Love it. It would be your core values, your good and bad experiences, mainly your bad ones, by the way. Yeah.
00:36:07
Speaker
and your charitable giving. And it's so powerful. All a lot of advisors do is just focus on the money. And uncommonly, you focus on transitioning those three, use your money in order to transition those three quadrants, and you'll have more money to give, and the people underneath you, your next generation, don't need your money.
00:36:30
Speaker
because they will know their core values are way more valuable. Their good and bad experiences are so valuable and the way that their parents taught them how to give charitably and they use their money to do that. So that to me is an uncommon legacy thought about different and then also transitioned different.
00:36:48
Speaker
And it's all about your heart, right? So it's about your children's heart. It's about how God transforms our own heart into this like, wait, what's a tithe? To how can I give what? Into this, what's this jog thing? Like, okay, I guess I'm gonna go to this journey of givers, like I guess. And seeing the transformation that happens into what we see now with Vern is just a generosity ambassador. And the joy that you have, Vern, it's,
00:37:15
Speaker
cathartic, it's also encouraging, but it's attractive too. And I want to be around more people that have that vision and that kind of uncommon view perspective. So thanks for sharing your story. It's powerful. It's great. Thank you for having me on. It was a pleasure and I love partnering with you and Dan and we look forward to serving the
00:37:37
Speaker
people who listen to this, I'm sure you'll find a way to connect them with Dan where it's appropriate. Awesome. Well, you've been listening to the Uncommon Wealth Podcast. I've been your host, Phillip Ramsey. If you have any feedback, we'd love to hear from you. If you wanted more information on NCF or even Vern, please reach out, phone number's 515-446-8158. Thanks again for listening. Until next time, go work on your uncommon legacy. Thanks for listening.
00:38:03
Speaker
That's all for this episode, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.