The interplay between sports and social responsibility, entrepreneurship, development, or whatever you want to call it is constantly evolving. I think we are at a special time as various factors are converging to accelerate this evolution. One factor is the inevitable wealth transfer that will take place in the U.S. over the next couple of decades. It is something to keep in mind, especially for non-profits and others creating programs when they consider their funding sources in the future.

The full article, “Huge Wave In Charitable Giving Still Coming,” by Richard C. Morais, can be found at http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/02/estate-tax-bill-gates-boston-college-personal-finance-bc.html, with an excerpt below.

(Excerpt)

Huge Wave In Charitable Giving Still Coming; Below the dire headlines, the largest transfer of wealth in history continues.

by Richard C. Morais, 10.02.09

With the trillions in real estate and stock market wealth that has been lost over the last two years, it is easy to lose sight of a trend that is continuing below the surface of the turmoil: the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in our nation’s history.

“The downturn is not going to keep people from dying, and it is not going to keep a wealth transfer from occurring,” says Paul Schervish, director of The Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College.

In 1998, Schervish and John Havens, associate director of the CWP, published a groundbreaking study analyzing “final estates”–that is, those in which there is no surviving spouse. The two scholars predicted that between 1998 and 2052, $41 trillion was going to be disbursed to four groups of beneficiaries: non-spousal heirs, government (through estate and inheritance taxes), philanthropic causes and the settlement “industry” (lawyers, trust administrators, bankers, etc.). Due to this unprecedented wealth transfer, Schervish and Havens have been predicting a “golden age of philanthropy.”

What with all the recent turmoil, it’s not surprising that their predictions have met some skepticism. Schervish has an answer for the doubters: “The greater proportion of the transfer is not going to go to us narcissistic baby boomers. We think it is going to come to us, so we look around and say, ‘It’s not coming to us. This transfer can’t be true.’ But the bulk of this transfer is going to be coming from baby boomers, not to them.”

But surely, after the huge amounts of wealth that was destroyed, the $41 trillion prediction has to be revised downward? Nope, says Havens. The $41 trillion figure assumed a conservative 2% annual increase in net wealth over the 55-year period in question. (With a 4% a year increase in net wealth, the transfer would be $136 trillion.)

The article continues at http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/02/estate-tax-bill-gates-boston-college-personal-finance-bc.html)