David Benson & Associates is prepared to offer seminars to your constituency. The seminars may include training for staff, board members, continuing education opportunities for the allied professionals, or, more particularly, seminars addressed to major donors. There are a number of formats that can be identified for major donors including women; seniors (75 and older) retired individuals (60-75), baby boomers (40-60), doctors and professionals, or business owners.

We are prepared to assist you in marketing the seminars. This would include identifying the best prospects to invite to the seminar and assisting with developing an invitation process. Marketing may also include selecting a location. It may be on your home site or it could be at a magnet location that would attract people. We can also help develop a policy for expenses, those expenses that might be paid by the donor, as well as those provided by the institution. Selecting the key personnel, both from your staff as well as key volunteers, will have an important part of who attends your seminars.

The major donor seminars that have proved to be the most effective are best identified as a "total experience." There is a social process that is involved as some of your major prospects have an opportunity to meet with the top leadership in your organization and also possibly some of your board leaders or key volunteers. By providing an opportunity to meet with the head of your organization, there is an opportunity for the seminar to become "an insider's event." There will be an opportunity to share some of the dreams and priorities for the institution, so the attendees leave the seminar with a greater sense of ownership with the institution and a feeling in being included with some of the ^"insider information." The seminars are obviously intended as an educational event. They are not designed as a solicitation event but rather as an opportunity to share some concepts in the area of estate planning and philanthropy. What we try to do is to share some of the basic concepts of estate planning and then provide the "charitable option'¹ so that they might consider those options along with the rest as they are developing or revising their estate plan. There can also be a personal component to the seminar. If the attendees are given an opportunity immediately following the seminars to spend an hour or so looking at their particular situation, including family needs as well as their assets to share some ideas with them, they might be specifically directed towards their needs, priorities and concerns.

The seminars are broken up into specific areas including family goals and transfers, estate planning and taxes, gifting and life income agreements, lead trusts and estate planning models. The presentation in the area of life income agreement uses a format of identifying a problem, suggesting a solution and then modeling that solution.

The individual sessions are confidential. The individuals are allowed to share information about their financial situation as well as family and charitable goals. With that information, we are able to identify some options that they might consider as a part of their overall plans. Often, the brainstorming looks at the non-charitable options from the standpoint of some of the basic concepts that should be considered for families with taxable estates. We then follow-up with some of the charitable options that seem appropriate given their type of assets as well as some of their charitable objectives. The sessions are intended to raise ideas so that they might continue to work with their allied professionals. They will then be able to bring some new ideas on the charitable options for their own counsel's review and advice.

The staff of the organization generally carries out the follow-up to these sessions and, in most instances, they will be able to assist the individuals in executing the plan of their choice. If there were more complex assets or larger estates, David Benson & Associates would be prepared to assist the staff in attempting to work out an agreeable plan. This process allows the staff members to maintain contact with your donors. They have a chance to be involved in developing the overall picture, and they will continue to maintain contact with the individuals or families once the initial gift is in place and they have an idea of what some of the options are for the future.