HEATHER EWING: The CRE RUNdown

Ep. 69 Maggie Porter Kratz - The Power of Community Giving

• Heather Ewing, CCIM • Season 1 • Episode 69

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Maggie Porter Kratz of United Way of Dane County shares how philanthropy creates meaningful community impact through strategic giving. We explore how United Way addresses systemic barriers and prevention strategies while offering various tax-efficient donation methods for donors at all giving levels.

• Anyone can be a philanthropist regardless of wealth level
• Many donors begin their giving journey through workplace contributions
• Tax law changes have increased popularity of donor advised funds (DAFs)
• United Way focuses on upstream prevention rather than just addressing symptoms
• 86% of donations go directly to community work with minimal administrative costs
• Strategic giving options include appreciated stock, IRA distributions, and recurring contributions
• United Way operates locally while connecting to a global network
• Donor designations can be directed to specific focus areas: youth opportunity, financial security, healthy communities, and community resiliency

Visit unitedwaydanecounty.org to learn more about how you can make an impact in your community through giving.

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Heather:

Welcome to Heather Ewing, the CRE Rundown. Typically, you're used to talking or seeing commercial real estate investors. You have fund managers, you might have accountants, architects, this, that and the other thing. Today we are going to take it deeper and we're going to go into fundraising for causes that matter. Today I have with me it's Maggie Porter-Kratz of the United Way. Maggie, welcome.

Maggie:

Thank you. Thanks for having me, heather, definitely my pleasure.

Heather:

So, for those of you that haven't met you or connected with you through LinkedIn, share a little bit more about yourself.

Maggie:

Yes, I am the Senior Director of Major and Leadership Giving at United Way of Dane County, so that means I get to work with mostly individuals who are interested in making a significant impact in the community, people who are looking for ways to give back, particularly through financial investments, and looking to transform the community.

Heather:

That's terrific, and of course we hear a lot about interest rates and different things of that nature, and what would you say has really transitioned over the past several years from the giving standpoint?

Maggie:

Well, giving has been impacted a lot by tax laws as well. There's been a lot of changes in the way that people can file their taxes and get different benefits for that. We've seen a lot of people really transition to setting up donor advised funds or DAFs, especially when they have a significant taxable event. That is a nice vehicle for people. I think we've seen a lot of people really looking at the community in new ways and investing even in richer ways in the community Very nice.

Heather:

And it's definitely important when we talk about commercial real estate and you're bringing revenue in from these different properties, the mixed use, developments and other investments. Cost segregation is a big deal, so what's really nice is that you also work in conjunction with being able to provide funding for different sources that are near and dear to people's hearts, in addition to helping them with those tax savings. So that is really nice. As you back it up, is there a certain type of donator that typically really reaches out? Is like is there a demographic for it?

Maggie:

Um, I think that one thing that I love about working in fundraising is working with people who are already philanthropists or thinking about becoming philanthropists, and you don't have to be super wealthy to be a philanthropist. I think a lot of people think that if they don't have significant wealth, they can't make a difference, and that's really just not true. They can't make a difference and that's really just not true. You know there's a lot of impact people can have with regular size gifts and going up to bigger gifts At United Way. It's really exciting because we often are one of the first places that someone decides to give. A lot of people connect to us, even through their first paycheck. You know a lot of people set up a rhythm in their life where they know they want to give back and they want to have the community be part of their lives.

Maggie:

It's fun to see a lot of the leaders in town who've been giving for over 25 years, over 30 years, over 50 years share. You know that they were told when they first started their job that value in this community is giving back and inviting them to be part of that, and a lot of those folks continue to grow. They grow their giving. Philanthropy would not only be good for their soul, be good for their community, help them live a richer life, but it's also introduced them to networks that they wouldn't have had otherwise, connected them with other people who care and help them connect on a personal level. United Way really is interesting too.

Maggie:

I think I've always worked in philanthropy and I love being able to help people navigate that, especially people who are kind of mid-career now and haven't been invited. People who have gotten to a point where they have a little stability and are ready to make the leap into giving something that feels a little more significant and figuring out what that, what that could look like, how they can craft a gift, how they can think about the impact it has for them, their family. It's yeah, it's really, it's really great to see. So your question was like who do we see coming to the table right now? And I would say that United Way is really lucky to have people early in their career. We have a group for young professionals who get together, have a lot of fun, raise a couple hundred dollars to people who are late career, who. We have over 280 households that give $10,000 every single year because they believe so deeply in the community.

Heather:

That's great and similar to saving money and things like that for investing. The earlier you start, the more that you're going to be able to help and just have that greater impact, and it becomes a habit, right? We either have habits that don't serve us or habits that do, so. That is really a great way to give back and, as we back it up, what attracted you to the United Way.

Maggie:

That's a great question. I have always my professional career has always been in fundraising. It's not something, you know, people dream about when they're a kid, but I found myself in a, just like many, wanting to have a career that was focused on the common good, you know, like looking at a place to be, and I found my skills really fit well with fundraising. You know, fundraising is a lot of connecting with people, being able to do writing, a lot of, a lot of the skills that I enjoyed and I worked in. I started my career at a homeless shelter in Detroit for 18 to 22 year olds and that was very impactful for me, and then worked in some housing organizations and then, most recently, worked in education and I was really looking for somewhere that looked at the upstream issues, you know, looking for a way to help families before they need help, you know, and look at the systemic barriers.

Maggie:

Being deep in fundraising, you know there's a lot of we know that a lot about the barriers that are out there, the a lot of the laws that have been passed intentionally over the years to create create barriers. But not everyone knows that, you know, and so it's been. It's been nice to be at a place that looks at those systems. One example of that is a school mobility project. It's a project that keeps kids from being families, from being evicted, and it's harder. It's harder to track. In a way, it's easier to talk about like kids in shelter beds and harder for people to sometimes put their minds around keeping kids out of that system, stopping that trauma from happening, keeping that family secure. But that's something that United Way really leads bringing together landlords, talking about tools for keeping families when they're at the brink, helping engage social workers. So there are a lot of examples at United Way like that, where we've brought together different groups, and so that is something I feel really proud of.

Heather:

I feel proud to be part of something that is sometimes it's kind of unseen, it's harder to report on, but it's very impactful, definitely, and I think it would be one of those arenas as well, where you go to bed just feeling like you have really helped to your point of it reminds me of the bamboo right, where you might put in for a long time and you don't see the results necessarily, and then all of a sudden, one day, there it is.

Maggie:

That's right.

Heather:

Right, and I'm also big on prevention for things, of looking further in advance, of what can you do to prevent situations Because, to your point, once something has happened, the amount of money and the time to, if you want to say, try to rehabilitate something, it takes a lot. We are human and I think at the end of the day sometimes that's forgotten in the busyness of life. But these things can and do happen and they're with people for lives. They might be able to manage it at times and at other times it might rear its head right. You never know what's going to happen. But something from a donor standpoint that has been really important I know from my own standpoint and others too is what percent of funds are passed through.

Maggie:

A United Way. Yeah, united Way invests 86 percent right into community work and the other 14% covers administrative costs, which is the strength of the nonprofit sector. It's where we're able to have professional staff who really make sure that that work is guided and stewarded. Right now we do have a really incredible donor who is covering the administrative cost. It's a complicated gift, but covering the administrative cost of individual gifts for everyone who is giving directly to United Way. So that means some people give a gift that sort of passes through United Way and so it doesn't cover that, but it does cover anyone who is giving directly to United Way. It pays for the administrative support that goes along with that and it's a commitment that's estimated to be at least a million dollars a year. So it's phenomenal.

Heather:

It's really exciting, yeah Well, and to your point, it's one of those. The stronger the administrative group, you know what I mean. I think it's just going to be a higher caliber. They're going to be able to plan out more, they have more experience such as yourself and they're really going to be able to oversee the dollars and execute as needed. And I think, too, to think that everything is going to go through is very atypical, and 86% is a significant pass-through, and now, with your new donor, that's that's really exciting as well. So I think there's a lot of opportunities, and sometimes people are aware of it or sometimes they're not, and that's also why I wanted to feature you in the United Way today, maggie, of bringing some of that awareness and also helping people to see how they can get involved, and I think it's as easy as they can go online and create a one-time or a monthly or is there a dollar type donation that can be offered?

Maggie:

Yep, people can definitely do that. You can set up a recurring gift. You can give easily through a credit card, through an ACH, through a payroll, if you're in a workplace, and then a lot of people are looking for strategic ways to give. A lot of people donate appreciated stock. A lot of people are giving through those DAFs, you know, those donor advised funds. This is probably down the road for many of your listeners, but once people are 72, they can give through their individual, their required minimum distribution through their IRA, up to 100,000 tax-free, and we have a lot of people who give a portion of that or to our work. So there's definitely a lot of creative ways to give if people are looking for tax-efficient ways in addition to making it easy to give any way that people regularly do.

Heather:

Definitely. And then are you able to? If you donate, are you able to direct it towards a certain arena?

Maggie:

Yep In our work, we have four main pillars and a lot of people choose to designate their gift through that. So we have youth opportunity, financial security, healthy communities and community resiliency and a lot of work going on in those buckets and experts who help us decide how those funds are allocated throughout the community. A lot of that involves bringing nonprofits together to do collaborative projects, making sure there's not that we're helping, make sure that the nonprofits are family focused, not just metrics focused. And then we still do have our donor service where people can designate the rest to specific nonprofits, and some people do that for a variety of reasons.

Heather:

Right, right and, of course, the question that comes into every conversation is AI right how? Do you see AI evolving throughout the arena.

Maggie:

Yeah, I think that that is so interesting. It's an area that I think nonprofits are really we're really trying to get a handle on. I think, in fundraising particularly, it's really helping us look at how we identify people who care about these kind of causes. Like, how do we make sure that we are inviting the people who are looking for something that is across the think that that's something we're continuing to look at, helping bring efficiency. I think that's it's a tool that we we are dipping our toes into.

Heather:

Right, well, and I think so many companies are at different paces, right, I've seen how it can be utilized. Obviously, confidentiality is a big one for all of us and just creating the new work style per se, yeah, yeah, zooming out a little bit. The United Way is it within Dane County only? Is it the state? Where are the parameters?

Maggie:

if someone isn't familiar.

Maggie:

Yeah, well, I represent United Way of Dane County, and United Ways are a network, so we all are connected to worldwide and we all collaborate. Many people choose to give where they live, and that might sound obvious, but we work with many companies here locally that have executives throughout the country, and so so we do have a big local impact. And we're also then funding other United Ways across the country and other United Ways that have headquarters. But people living here have funds coming back to us that way too, so we're very interconnected back to us that way too. So we're very interconnected, but our work is very local in terms of the especially in terms of our community impact work. We're working with local experts, we're working with local municipalities, we're working with the local business community to make sure that we are investing in what matters right here, that's perfect.

Heather:

Well, and it's nice to have the local in addition to the strength of the nation and the world. That's a really nice setup and also a familiarity, because you have a really strong reputation here in Dane County and I'm sure that filters throughout, which is terrific. So my final hard-hitting question for you, Maggie, is what does living fully mean to you?

Maggie:

is what does living fully mean to you? Yeah, well, to me, you know, living fully means like having, I think, a rich and diverse life. You know I love fundraising and I love bringing people to a cause and hearing their heart. You know like that is such a gift for me to get to work with people as they're thinking about their, their life and their meaning. But I also love slowing down. You know, being out on the water reading books with my kids, going to live music. So to me, I think it's making sure that you feed all, all sides of you.

Heather:

Beautifully said, it's and not or right? Yes, well, on that note, maggie, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for sharing more about the United Way, how people can get involved, and obviously a little bit more about it.

Maggie:

Thank you Thanks for having me, Heather.

Heather:

You bet Bye-bye.

Maggie:

Bye.