Investment Management
Using an investment manager with expertise in managing charitable trusts is critical.
Charitable Reminder Trusts
When you first decide to start a charitable reminder trust, we will sit down with you to determine what type of income stream will best fit your needs. We can structure an annuity trust that makes fixed payments, a unitrust that pays you a percentage of the trust assets each year or a net income trust that pays you the net income from the trust assets.
Once the trust type is determined, we will work with you to determine the best investment strategy to grow the principal and support the income requirements. CRTs are subject to special rules regarding the taxation of income they receive. We will draw on our expertise in philanthropic asset management to invest the account in such a way that minimizes the taxation of your income. In addition, we will take special care to avoid generating unrelated business taxable income, the receipt of which will make your CRT a taxable trust. The need to avoid unrelated business taxable income is one of the key reasons to only consider an investment advisor with expertise in managing CRT assets for your trust.
We work closely with our clients to develop an investment policy statement and structure a portfolio tailored to meet their unique needs. We then monitor the portfolio on a daily basis to ensure it remains aligned with the trust’s objectives.
At Ensemble, we regard investment management as the cornerstone of philanthropy. Generosity begins with assets, and our job is to grow and preserve them in ways that enhance your ability to exercise your giving in tandem with your other financial goals.
Charitable Lead Trusts
Taking into account whether you want to use your lead trust to reduce your income tax obligation or to minimize gift and estate taxes, we will help you structure a trust to fit your needs. We will then carefully manage the assets in order to tax efficiently support the trust’s annual charitable gifts as well as maximize the terminal value of the trust when it returns its principal to you or gifts the principal to your heirs.