Broadcast Retirement Network’s Jeffrey Snyder discusses charitable planning with T. Rowe Price’s Emily Barczak.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Joining me now is Emily Barczak of T. Rowe Price.
Emily, so great to see you. Thanks for joining us this morning.
Emily Barczak, T. Rowe Price
Thanks for having me. Great to be here with you.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And as you know, I am a Baltimore native. How is the great city of Baltimore today?
Emily Barczak, T. Rowe Price
Snow covered, fatigued parents, I think at this point with the number of snow days we’ve had this year. But all is good in Charm City.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Excellent. I’m rooting very hard for the Orioles and Ravens in the next seasons that are upcoming. All right, T.
Rowe Price released a recent survey around, I’m going to say the state of charitable giving and in particular, how investors and advisors are kind of interacting. But let me level set with you. What’s the state of charitable giving in 2026?
Emily Barczak, T. Rowe Price
The state is that it needs to be talked about more and that advisors need to proactively bring up generosity and giving with their clients. Yeah. I mean, simply put, it’s just- Yeah, pretty simple.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Go ahead. I was going to say, I mean, I don’t mean to cut you off, but it sounds pretty straightforward. People like to give, Emily.
Emily Barczak, T. Rowe Price
They do. And because of historically how generosity and charitable giving has been talked about in the advisor-client relationship, clients themselves, based on our research, don’t really associate advisors with really playing a central and crucial role in their giving. And advisors themselves are really, frankly speaking, not owning their role in that.
They do play an integral part, a central part to that. They can. And investors really see tax specialists, estate specialists, and those kinds of professionals as really being the point of contact for their giving.
And because of that, it kind of historically has stayed in a very transactional realm. And what we know has evolved for investors, especially with NextGen talking about generations X, Y, and Z, and it’s fair to assume alpha will follow trend, charitable giving and generosity is a really important financial planning component and financial goal for arguably most investors, but we’re definitely seeing it with high net worth, ultra high net worth, as well as the NextGen investors.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So it sounds like, just based on the survey results, there’s a real opportunity for the advisor portion of our audience to say, hey, I might be able to help my client not only in managing their retirement assets, their data, their investments, but also maybe in their charitable giving.
Emily Barczak, T. Rowe Price
Yeah, I mean, I think about this phrase of like, charitable capital is still capital, right? And so if advisors see themselves, view themselves as stewards of capital, broadly speaking of their investors, and they handle charitable giving like they do any of the other financial planning themes, it really is an opportunity to bolster trust, bolster professionalism, because charitable giving has the same components and conversation topics around risk, around what’s the time horizon, what meaning and value does this have for you?
What is the impact that you want it to have? And so if advisors are front footed about it and raise it up more frequently than we know they’re doing in financial planning conversations, it really bolsters the relationship. We know based on our research, client satisfaction levels go up, referral rates go up, retention rates go up.
Connecting with the next generation and having and establishing a foothold with the heirs of existing clients, that increases, which all is tied to sustainability and growth of your practice.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And it’s not often easy to talk about end of life or what happens after we’re gone, but the advisor plays an important role in that, whether you’re talking about succession planning as you were just talking about, leaving money to your heirs. It’s a hard conversation to have, but one you’re better off talking about, Emily, sooner rather than later.
Emily Barczak, T. Rowe Price
Absolutely, yeah. And I often use, when I’m talking to advisors about various practice management themes, I use the metaphor of the hub and spoke. And advisors really are the hub, kind of going back to that word of them being central, they are the hub to all of these various different resources, whether it’s within their own practice or it’s leveraging firm capabilities and firm resources.
Many firms have fantastic charitable giving organizations. They really are the hub to connect to those different expertise. They don’t have to be experts in the various different products and solutions around charitable giving and philanthropy, but they are the connector and conduit to that.
And I will say, conversationally, many families are comfortable talking about giving with their children, with their grandchildren. It is a accessible and safe way to talk about money without talking about money. And so the conversations are happening in these households and in these families.
And it’s just, we want advisors to really help facilitate these conversations and see themselves as that hub.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And you were talking earlier about maybe the ultra high net worth families certainly do this, but this is something for everybody. So you do not have to have, be daddy Warbucks for those who’ve seen the play Annie. You don’t have to be daddy or mama Warbucks, I guess maybe there’s a mama Warbucks.
You don’t have to be ultra wealthy. This is something that applies to all cross sections of Americana.
Emily Barczak, T. Rowe Price
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we’re seeing because of the next gen, their priorities and their values. We’ve definitely seen it broaden.
If you do think about like high earners, not rich yet. So not those that are necessarily would be categorized as high net worth or ultra high net worth, but high earners trending in that direction. It is absolutely a component of how they spend their time and how they allocate their money and their resources.
And you do as an advisor want to be in on the ground floor with that because the generosity and charitable giving as they move through their lifetime and amass more wealth will have more meaning and significance to them. And so it doesn’t, it should not be a conversation that is reactionary. It should very much be one that is proactive and a part of the cadence and the agenda that you set when you have financial planning conversations.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
I guess my last question is around the different types of vehicles. And I’m very familiar, I guess, anecdotally, I’m not an expert like you are in charitable donations, but I’m aware of like things like charitable trusts. An area that seems to be really growing is donor advised funds.
Is that something that came out through your survey results? And are you seeing that within T. Rowe Price’s charitable giving practice?
Emily Barczak, T. Rowe Price
Yeah, I mean, donor advised funds or DAFs as they’re frequently referred to, they are simple and flexible. So they are a very appealing solution when talking about various different ways to structure and strategize giving. And like I said, many firms do have DAFs and do have support and resources and solutions internally that advisors can leverage.
And the key message here is it’s more about the conversation than it is the complexity of the solution. And so you’ve got to establish and embed in your agenda, financial planning agendas, giving as a topic. And get practiced at having the conversation, understanding what clients really value and some of the components to sort of where their heads at with giving.
And if you’re able to do that, then the solution follows. And it oftentimes for many advisors means enlisting the expertise of what their firm offers and not having, don’t get spooked by not feeling like you’re well-versed or an expert in DAFs or foundations. There’s probably a team of people that is really willing to meet with you and meet with your clients for them to learn more.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. Well, I think people like to give. I think people want to give.
And clearly there’s a need today with affordability being a big issue. There’s certainly a need for people to give. Emily Barzak, great survey.
Great to see you. And we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon.
Emily Barczak, T. Rowe Price
Thank you so much, Jeff.