Sidebar - News
American Indian College Fund Selects DonorFirstTM Platform NEW YORK, NY, Dec 15, 2008
Crown Philanthropic Solutions, LLC, an innovative provider of philanthropic technology for the financial services and nonprofit industries, announced today that the American Indian College Fund (the Fund) has selected them to provide the Web-based administrative platform for their new Donor Advised Fund (DAF) initiative.
"We are excited to be selected by the American Indian College Fund to support their new initiative, and consider it a tribute to our corporate vision of enhanced donor engagement and collaboration that an organization with their unique mission and commitment has elected to provide our program to their donors," said William Hewitt, Crown Philanthropic Solutions' National Marketing Director. Distributing approximately 5,000 scholarships each year and supported by more than 22,000 donors, The American Indian College Fund transforms Indian higher education by creating awareness of the unique, community-based Tribal Colleges and Universities. The Fund offers students access to knowledge, skills, and cultural values which enhance their communities and the country as a whole.
"Tribal colleges are beacons of hope for social and economic change in the communities they serve," said Tammy Miller-Carlson, Chief Financial Officer of the Fund. "These institutions are vital to Native America and beneficial to the country as a whole because they help Native communities in the fight against poverty, and act to preserve language and culture by integrating these important elements into their curriculum. Our new Crown DonorFirst(TM) DAF program will help us mobilize more supporters and dramatically expand our ability to provide scholarships for the Native American community."
Recognized as the fastest growing charitable instrument in the country today, DAFs have historically been limited in their ability to support the levels of family collaboration, donorgrantee communication, and investment flexibility currently being demanded by both established donors and emerging philanthropists. DAFs enable individuals with philanthropic interests to efficiently manage their charitable giving by allowing them to make an irrevocable contribution of a variety of personal assets (cash, appreciated stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and real estate) at the most advantageous time; claim a tax deduction for the gifts; and then direct contributions from their account to the charity or charities of their choice by recommending a grant distribution from the foundation sponsoring their account.
"Crown is the first player in the Web-based philanthropic space with an approach that can truly help mobilize the vast amounts of social capital that exist within the nation today," noted Crown Philanthropic Solutions' Chief Executive Officer, Ephy Torenberg. "Our DonorFirst(TM) platform helps organizations to service the strategic philanthropic needs of donors, elevate their emotional engagement experience, retain current donors and their families, enhance fund raising efforts, and scale a foundation's capabilities using existing staff and resources."
New York, NY April, 2009 Charity Begins at Home - Financial Advisor Magazine
New York, NY Dec. 8, 2008 Foundations Cite Concerns As They Cope With Struggling Economy - Nonprofit News
New York, NY Nov. 26, 2008 Five Ways to Check a Charity - Kiplinger’s Personal Finance
New York, NY Nov. 23, 2008 Less in Hand to Offer - Washington Post Online
New York, NY Nov. 16, 2008 Do-good Offerings Hit Hard - InvestmentNews
New York, NY Aug. 20, 2008 8 Wealthy Donors May Provide Stability to Gifting - WSJ
New York, NY Aug. 19, 2008 Gifting Trends Among the Affluent - Financial Times
New York, NY Aug. 15, 2008 Phil Cubeta and Gift Hub review DonorFirstTM - Gift Hub
New York, NY June 23rd 2008 Renaissance Selects Crown DonorFirstTM Technology To Provide Leading-Edge Solutions to Charitable Giving Fund
Crown Philanthropic Solutions, LLC, an innovative provider of technology solutions for the financial services and nonprofit space, is pleased to announce it has been selected to provide the Web-based interface and administrative solution for the Renaissance Charitable Giving Fund, (www.rcgf.org) a $160 million donor advised fund sponsored by the Renaissance Charitable Foundation. This comes on the heels of Crown Philanthropic Solutions’ recent introduction of a totally new approach to traditional donor-advised fund (DAF) technology, and one that for the first time empowers donors and sponsors with the expanded functionality and engagement capabilities that donors have been looking for. “We are excited to be selected by Renaissance and consider it a tribute to our corporate vision of enhanced donor engagement that an organization with their experience in the charitable planning space has elected to provide our program to their donors,” remarked Crown CEO Ephy Torenberg. “I believe that our adoption of the Crown DonorFirstTM platform for our donor advised fund program will provide our advisors and donors with the type of leading edge solutions and service they have come to expect from Renaissance,” noted Elizabeth Packer Bassett, CEO of Renaissance. “The DonorFirstTM platform offers a highly efficient workflow capability and an integrated Guidestar charity verification for our staff; the online technology our advisors need to guide their clients from financial success to personal significance. The system also supports levels of family collaboration previously available only within private foundation sponsors.” Recognized as the fastest growing charitable instrument in the country today, donor advised funds (DAFs) have historically been limited in their ability to support the levels of family collaboration, donor-grantee communication, and investment flexibility traditionally demanded by the high net-worth audience. Crown Philanthropic Solutions is the first player in the Internet philanthropic space with an approach that can truly help mobilize the vast amounts of social capital that exist within the nation today. DAFs enable individuals with philanthropic interests to efficiently manage their charitable giving by allowing them to make an irrevocable contribution of a variety of personal assets (cash, appreciated stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and real estate) at the most advantageous time; claim a tax deduction for the gifts, and then direct contributions from their account to the charity or charities of their choice by recommending a grant distribution from the foundation sponsoring their account Crown’s DonorFirstTM platform provides a true open architecture capability that was designed to serve a wide range of investment options and donor/advisor preferences. “Coupled with a powerful, private, and secure relationship and collaboration environment, Crown has introduced a solution that supports high net worth donors as they move toward a new, broad-based form of philanthropy, enhancing the overall engagement experience for donors and their families, while simultaneously providing a simple, efficient system for managing basic charitable contributions,” said William H. Hewitt, Crown Philanthropic Solutions’ National Marketing Director. “This evolution from charity to philanthropy is a process that all donors go through as they mature, and as they acquire the kind of wealth which carries with it increased responsibility. The Crown platform not only supports both ends of the continuum, but makes the donors’ path smoother and more accessible than ever before.” Renaissance, an independent trust administrator with over $2 billion in assets under administration, has been the leader in expanding the concept of social capital since 1987, and has helped design, draft and administer more than 5,000 planned charitable gifts and has even accepted a roller coaster, boats and cattle as charitable donations during their 20 plus years. The organization has trained and supported thousands of donor advisors to help its clients recognize the existence of social capital, and understand how to best put it to use for society and themselves. “We are excited about the potential the Crown DonorFirstTM platform offers to support the mobilization of philanthropic capital in the United States,” continued Bassett.
Crown Philanthropic Solutions, LLC Unveils Next Generation of Donor Advised Fund Technology New Internet Platform Dramatically Expands DAF Capabilities for Firms and Advisors New York, NY - June 16, 2008
In a first-to-market internet offering designed to help financial services and nonprofit organizations capture a significantly greater share of the fast-growing $23.3 billion donor-advised fund (DAF) market, Crown Philanthropic Solutions’ has introduced a revolutionary enhancement in donor-advised fund technology; a state-of-the-art web-based platform that finally puts investment advisors, their high-net worth charitable clients, and those clients’ gift recipients all on the same page – literally. The DonorFirstTM platform, Crown Philanthropics’ new web-based offering, empowers foundations, mutual funds, universities, RIAs and other institutions to provide a complete private-labeled DAF program to their audience, including a personal web-based charitable dashboard for each of their donors. For the first time ever, Crown technology facilitates direct online communication between donors and their charities; advisors and their donor-clients, and a unique collaborative environment for client families. In addition, Crown’s new OpenArchitectureTM investment capabilities enable firms and their advisors to continue managing clients’ charitable assets through a wide variety of clearing platforms, helping them to retain rather than lose client assets and relationships. Crown’s intent is to replace older donor-advised fund technology, which fails to support donor and advisor communication, typically restricts investments to a handful of proprietary mutual funds, and traditionally blocks advisors from retaining personal management of DAF assets, creating a planning dilemma for many advisors. Crown executives say their platform will change that. “Our goal is to give the nonprofit community, financial institutions and their registered advisors the ability to retain and compete for high-net worth donors in the fastest growing area of philanthropy today, donor-advised funds,” said Ephy Torenberg, CEO of Crown Philanthropic Solutions. “We believe we’ve done that, by giving DAF sponsors the Web-based technology they need to support the increased levels of communication and collaboration donors require, enhancing the overall engagement experience for donors and their families and enabling firms to actively participate in this charitable market, a market that is growing by more than 24% a year. DAFs are as easy to create as an IRA, and we believe that donor advised funds have the potential to experience the type of growth we’ve seen in the 401k market over the past 7 to 10 years,” Torenberg added. “Sponsors that deliver the most effective and efficient platform will win the most assets, and that’s what we’ve set out to help them accomplish.” Charitable giving itself is expected to top $2.7 trillion in the next 10 years, with a significant percentage of that potentially going to DAFs. The Crown DonorFirstTM platform enables sponsoring organizations to host state-of-the-art private-labeled DAF programs without the typically heavy investment in technology or a reliance on more dated legacy solutions. “Our unique web-based platform enables our clients to establish a robust presence in the donor advised fund market quickly, using our cost-effective, quick-todeploy capabilities,” said William H. Hewitt, Crown Philanthropic Solutions’ National Marketing Director. “At the same time, we deliver the type of web-based environment that donors and investors want as they evolve from charity to philanthropy, making us the first player in the Internet philanthropic space with an approach that can mobilize the vast amounts of social capital that exist in America today.” The Crown solution is also a valuable and much-needed tool for advisors and development officers, who may face losing higher net worth clients’ assets if they can’t deliver evolved philanthropic offerings, such as customizable DAFs. “Our solutions make a donors' advisors the quarterback, right down to the photo of them that appears on each client Web-page, with a clickthrough email address clients can use to reach their advisors,” Hewitt continued. The Crown platform also gives institutions and advisors the ability to deliver all the tax-advantaged benefits of DAFs to individuals, groups and multiple generational families that advisors are targeting to create “sticky assets.” “We truly believe the revolutionary advancements in DAF technology we’ve created will significantly enhance relationships between advisors, their high net worth clients, and the nonprofit organizations benefiting from their gifts. As a result, we think we will begin to see the assets in DAF programs capture an increasing share of the multi-trillion dollar asset transfer market.” Hewitt said.