LGBT donors can effect change

By Michael Slaymaker

Sun Sentinel

Same-sex marriage could create a significant change to philanthropy.

I have known gay and lesbian couples who had been together for decades. More often than not when one died, the biological family came in and took the house, the car and every other worldly possession. This sounds dramatic, but it’s true. Talk to any gay couples you know. Now, with legal same-sex marriage, this injustice ends. Same-sex marriage in the United States will create a fundamental shift in who keeps and holds the marital assets. Yes, marriage is about love, but it is also about money.

In the case that began legalized same-sex marriage, United States v. Windsor, Ms. Windsor was required to pay $363,053 in federal estate taxes on her inheritance of her wife’s estate. Had federal law recognized the validity of their Canadian marriage, Windsor would have qualified for an unlimited spousal deduction and paid no federal estate taxes.

Unlimited spousal deduction on inheritance is just one of the 1,138 federal benefits, rights and responsibilities associated with marriage. When we look at joint tax filing, Social Security, veterans benefits, etc., there are huge sums of money coming to these potential donors (and 83 percent do not have children, according to the Williams Institute).

The median estate size is tied to net worth. When a person dies, his or her net worth becomes the estate. In 2009, the Federal Reserve reported that household net worth – stocks, bonds, homes and other assets, minus mortgages and other debts – was at about $182,000 a person. So let’s use the 1,233 couples in Florida who got their marriage license on Jan. 6, 2015, as our example: 1,233 x 2 x $182,000=$448,812,000.

If you view it from a national level, there are 56,630,000 married couples in the United States. Only 283,150 are same-sex couples. If you multiply it by two to get the number of individuals and times it by the median estate, we are talking about $103 billion.

What does this mean for philanthropy in the United States?

If your organization doesn’t have a strategy for attracting and engaging this section of our community, you are going to miss out on this transfer of wealth. If you think lesbians and gay men support only LGBT or HIV/AIDS causes, you are incorrect. LGBT people support all kinds of causes.

With the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June 2015, same-sex marriage is the law of the land.

In fact, it isn’t same-sex marriage anymore. It is simply marriage.

Nonprofit organizations should add this topic to their strategic planning discussion. Do you actively try to attract LGBT contributors or not? Look to the future. What does it hold for your organization?

Michael Slaymaker is vice president of development and planned giving at Easter Seals Florida, and he is the Florida chapter administrator for the Association of Fundraising Professionals Central Florida. He wrote this for the Orlando Sentinel. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.