To determine the winning practices and firms, Bromley says Charitable Impact looked at several categories including the amount of money given by their clients; the number of different clients they interacted with for charitable giving; and at the firm level, the number of different advisors who are engaged in the practice.
“We didn’t clearly articulate those different categories, given the nature and the complexity of comparing different cases,” Bromley says “Someone could walk in the door, having just sold their company for $100 million, and might be considering giving away $20 million. But that doesn’t mean that person’s any nicer or better advised than a client who hasn’t sold their company for $100 million and is making another gift of publicly traded securities worth $100,000.
“What’s important at Charitable Impact is access to and participation in charitable giving, regardless of how much money you have, how much money you give away, what experience you have, or what charities you care about,” Bromley says. “Through these awards, we’re honouring cultures that encourage a wide breadth of participation even if the money is not that big, a smaller breadth of participation with large charitable contributions, and everything in between.”
Even outside the awards, Charitable Impact is able to fully support strategic philanthropy as a non-bank-affiliated, independent foundation. Because of its independence, Bromley says the platform is able to accommodate any wealth advisor from any firm, letting them assist in their clients’ charitable giving while still keeping those assets on their books.
“We didn’t start our donor-advised fund to amass AUM when our clients choose to give them away. This is something we wake up every day for, and we’re totally focused on it,” he says. “We don’t do charity because it can help us achieve some other goal. For us, charity is the goal.”
