Recently, I've been talking to a bunch of EAs who need help with financial planning.
Lots of financial advisors know how to maximize wealth. But what about maximizing donations, using tax strategy, estate planning, and matching?
Do you know of financial advisors in your country that work with individuals, small businesses, or foundations, and know how to maximize the amount someone can donate over their lifetime?
A financial advisor who can give personal advice on:
- At what point in my life (early career, late career, retirement) should I be donating the highest % of my income, so I can get to the biggest cumulative donation amount in my lifetime?
- If I'm going to get a raise or a pay cut, how should that impact my donations over the next 5 years?
- In what situations should I be buying a house now, with a higher expenditure and less donations early in my career, so I have more cash available to donate later?
- Should I be donating stocks or holding onto them? What about other assets like art?
- What should I be leaving to charity in my will for the greatest benefit?
- What should I be spending money on now (maybe shrinking my current donation budget), so that life events like having kids, medical emergencies, buying a house, or retirement cost less in total?
- How should I invest my DAF?
Any recommendations, in any region? Maybe we can start a thread that puts the financial advisors aligned with our goals all onto one page here.
If anyone wants to start an Airtable, you'll have my eternal gratitude.
Probably as important as the quality of the adviser is their fee structure. For a lot of these questions, I believe you want a fee-only advisor, whose compensation is strictly an hourly rate and not based on commissions or assets under management. E.g.: for an unbiased answer to "donate now vs. invest and donate later," you don't want your advisor to have a financial interest in one of the outcomes!