44. Jennifer Hartz on corporate and personal philanthropy

Our guest today is Jennifer Hartz, a McKinsey alum and the founder of Corporate Hartz.

Jennifer has several focus areas including business-driven community relations strategies, nonprofit strategic planning, and personal philanthropy. Her philosophy is that generosity and profitability can, and should, go hand-in-hand.

Her lessons learned from helping families take a strategic approach to philanthropy can be useful to all of us – you don’t need to have a $100 million fund to start a family conversation about giving.

With the holidays coming up, and the tax year coming to a close, after listening to this episode you might be motivated to set up your own donor-advised fund. With a donor advised fund, you get the charitable deduction off your income taxes today when you contribute money to the account.  Then you can disburse the funds over time to approved charities.  You can start a fund at Fidelity with a minimum $5,000 contribution, and over at Vanguard with a minimum contribution of $25,000.

In our discussion, Jennifer mentions her periodic newsletter, called Hartz and Minds – you can find an archive of all her past newsletters on her website, which also lists her very impressive set of clients and her philosophy on corporate philanthropy. Check it out at corporatehartz.com.