Written by Adrienne Webb Schulman, MPA, CAP® 

Lynn Malzone Ierardi, J.D. has been in the estate and gift planning field for more than 30 years. She is the author of Storytelling: The Secret Sauce of Fundraising Success (available on Amazon). Lynn recently moved on from her nearly 20-year career at University of Pennsylvania to NYU Langone Health where she serves as Senior Director of Gift Planning. 

She served as Board Chair of the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners in 2019. She is also a past board member and past President of the New Jersey Council of Charitable Gift Planners and former board member of the Planned Giving Council of Greater Philadelphia (PGCGP). We interviewed Lynn to get her takeaways from her decades of work at Penn and leadership on the Planned Giving Council of Greater Philadelphia.

You’ve achieved a lot during your time at Penn. What do you feel was your biggest accomplishment?

I really see the success of my work at Penn as part of the broader gift planning team. I’m most proud of our progress in breaking down silos in collaboration with the different schools, centers, and teams. I am proud of the work we did to strengthen gift planning across the University. From large-scale parts of the institution like the Wharton School of Business to our smaller centers like the Morris Arboretum, we built up planned giving programs. Over the years, building internal relationships was something the gift planning team focused on. This kind of collaboration eliminated silos, made us all much more effective, and we raised more money!

What makes a gift-planning program successful? If you were giving advice to someone leading a gift planning program for the first time, what would you say to them?

Start with the basics: bequests and beneficiary designations, and don’t be intimidated by the more complex gift vehicles. One of the first things I do to initiate or build out a planned giving program - whether I’m in my new role at NYU Langone or when I’ve worked with my consulting clients - is to take a look at integrating planned giving into the organization’s current activities. Where can you sprinkle in Planned Giving? Look for opportunities to include gift planning in activities, publications, mailings, digital tools, events, and perhaps most importantly, conversations. If the activity already exists at the organization, add to it instead of creating all new and separate channels.

What do you feel was the biggest macro-policy shift (legislative change, tax change) that impacted your planned giving program during your time at Penn?

I think the biggest shift is the move away from gifts of cash to gifts of assets. Non-cash assets have gone up in value making them a more desirable asset for donations. People are more concerned about capital gains than they are about estate taxes now. As people age, they are more likely to say, “I don’t need these particular assets anymore.” The continued shift of focus on gifts of assets touches on a number of the changes you mentioned – demographic, income and estate tax, and legislative changes.

You’ve been at Penn for 18 years and built many successful relationships. Are there any donors that you plan to keep in touch with?

Certainly, if a donor reached out to me, I would respond. But I am not a fan of keeping in touch with donors after leaving an institution because I view these donors Penn’s donors, not my donors. There are certainly donors that I will miss! Over the course of 18 years, you build relationships. In some ways, it becomes personal and it’s sad to lose those relationships whether it’s because a donor dies or because we leave the organization. But, it comes with the job!  

As a longtime leader in our community – what do you think it will take for us to keep the Planned Giving Council of Greater Philadelphia thriving for years to come?

I think it’s a tough time for any of the planned giving councils because the world changed with COVID and technology advances. We have so many online opportunities to engage in gift planning education. As a result, the councils are struggling to be relevant and provide value. Work from home means people don’t want to travel for meetings. But the networking and camaraderie fostered by the council is invaluable. I started with the Princeton Gift Planning Council in 1993, joined the Philadelphia Council when I started at Penn in 2005, and have been involved with local councils for 30 years. I can tell you it is priceless to have colleagues from the Council to learn from and share ideas and experiences. I may not stay in touch with donors after leaving Penn, but I will absolutely keep in touch with colleagues!

Lastly, how can we stay in touch with you?

Yes, I’m happy to stay in touch! You can always email me at: Lynn.Ierardi@nyulangone.org.

You can also follow my work through my consultancy, giftplanningadvisor.com, and, of course, follow my work on Linked In.