The Philanthropy Mindset: Turning Generosity Into Lasting Impact with Rick Peck - Episode - 556

That conversation reminds me of George Harrison, the former Beatle, saying something about, is money the answer? He said, no, it's not. What about fame? No, that's not it. So I just like the way he sort of went through and said, I've had all these things, but that's not necessarily what fulfillment is. And he was a very religious person. So I just, I find him a fascinating character because he sort of backed away from all that. He enjoyed music. He enjoyed being a musician, enjoyed all that. But I think he was also like, you know, there's a higher purpose. Calling here, what is that? What would that look like for me to fulfill that in my lifetime? And I thought that was a fascinating journey that he went through.

Writing a check is easy. Creating lasting impact is not. Discover how thoughtful questions and intentional giving can transform wealth into a legacy that actually matters. Welcome to Streams to Impact, brought to you by Steve Talker Capital. I'm your host, Dr. Allen. For many high-achieving professionals, generosity eventually becomes about more than giving. It becomes about intentional values and the kind of impact you want your success to create. On this podcast, we explore how wealth can move beyond accumulation and become a tool for meaning, legacy, and contribution. Before we begin, I want to share a gift with you. It's Beyond the Paycheck. And this is the Financial Clarity Compass, a private educational masterclass designed to help high-income professionals gain clarity and confidence around their wealth. You can claim this gift at www.go.stetucker.com/beyond-paycheck. Now, let's step into today's conversation, but just A brief disclaimer. All information shared on Streams to Impact is for educational purposes only and should not be considered investment, financial, legal, or tax advice. All investments involve risk, and you should consult your professional advisors before making any decisions.

Today's guest has spent more than 2 decades helping individuals, families, organizations, and advisors move beyond transactional giving and into intentional values-driven philanthropy.

As the founder of The Philanthropy Guy, he guides meaningful conversations that align generosity with purpose, legacy, and long-term impact.

With experience as both a professional financial advisor and a charitable giving specialist, he brings a practical and thoughtful perspective to legacy planning and strategic giving.

He is also an ambassador in the Fin Service Network at the American College of Financial Services, working alongside financial leaders committed to ethical decision-making and lifelong learning.

Welcome, Rick. We are glad that you are with us today.

Thank you very much for having me, Allen.

You bet. So when did you first realize that generosity wasn't really about money? money at all, but about meaning, values, and really the kind of life someone hopes to live or to be remembered for.

I think I first started to realize it when I was working for Dartmouth College, where it— I was hired as an associate director of gift planning, which means I would go around the country and talk to people about bequest intentions, real estate gifts, charitable gift annuities, charitable remainder trusts, very technical stuff, very future-based. as far as the giving goes. But I realized that there is something deeper going on too, which is these people— for example, one who comes to mind, gentleman I met with in New York City. He was one of the first meetings I had in New York City, and he approached me and we talked about doing a $250,000 scholarship for Dartmouth. And I remember thinking, okay, this guy makes a lot of money. He's, uh, at the time they were trying to work on Hertz as their client, trying to close a deal for Hertz Rent-A-Car.

Mm-hmm.

And, but there was just something about, he almost, I almost felt like he was just unfulfilled. He was, he was doing what most people would dream of, which is making a lot of money and doing very well financially, but you could tell it was a little bit empty for him. So he He thought, how about doing something nice for my school where I can help somebody who's less fortunate have a good solid education? So I remember he said to me at that time, he goes, Rick, you're doing the good work. And then that just kind of filtered into many other conversations I was having after that, which is these people do have often a good deal of money, but what they don't have is necessarily fulfillment. They don't have the feeling that they're making impact. They are searching for ideas. They're searching for ways that in my situation, I could help them do something meaningful for Dartmouth, or when I worked at the hospital for grateful patients and their families as they come through better healthcare, better medical facility, better, better anything to do with better care.

So.

So I, I realized that money was a tool to help them get there, but really they were looking for that idea that, you know, what can you tell me about the impact of this? How, how have I done something important and how can I do something that maybe goes beyond my lifetime? If I can do that, I might feel fulfilled. But again, they were coming to me saying, I don't know, I don't necessarily know what that looks like. Can you help me understand that? So. So yeah, I've realized over time there's a lot of layers to philanthropy and giving back and being generous.

Yeah, I think that that's probably true of a lot of things surrounding money. So oftentimes we think it's going to solve all of our problems, and, and it never does. You know, if you're looking at it for a problem to your solutions, it's probably just not going to be there.

Right, yeah.

And particularly in terms of finding meaning and purpose in life, money's just not going to do that. It can give you a lot of options and opportunities, it can give you freedom, but if you don't know what to do with those options and those freedoms, it can end up being a pretty empty, empty kind of place.

It's true. It could be a prison for some people. They could feel like, excuse me, money's keeping them from having connections with other people. It could, yeah, it could make them feel isolated. And also, it reminds me, our conversation reminds me of George Harrison, the former Beatle, saying something about, you know, is money the answer? He said, no, it's not. What about fame? No, that's not it. So I just like the way he sort of went through and said, I've had all these things, but that's not necessarily what fulfillment is. And he was a very religious person. He was very— so, so I just, I find him a fascinating character because he, he sort of backed away from all that. He enjoyed music, he enjoyed being a musician, he enjoyed all that. But I think he was also like, you know, there's a higher calling here. What is that? What would that look like for me to fulfill that in my lifetime? And I thought that was a fascinating journey that he went through.

Yeah, well, at a high level, When you're working with people who are not only looking for a purpose and meaning, but they really do want to ensure that where they are giving is meaningful for where they're giving to, what are you seeing right now that most donors and advisors may not really fully appreciate?

Well, I'd say it first starts with make— making an impact is different for every person. So what I do is just walk through the journey with individuals and families like this. I'll say, what are your values? What is your— what are your value set? And, and that's a question that not a lot of people necessarily have talked through.

Mm-hmm.

You know, they might have ideas of what their values are, but I'm not sure if they vocalize them. So, so that's an interesting exercise for people. It's especially interesting to watch a couple go through it. If you give them a deck of cards and they kind of go through and the deck of cards has these different values on them with different descriptions, it's interesting to see what the married couple simultaneously will do to come up with values that are the same or different. So I think that's important also to talk about the issue areas that they think they care about. Is it homelessness, food scarcity? Climate change, veterans, what is it that you care about? Then kind of moving into, all right, well, what about your family? Do you want to bring your family into this conversation? And what about emotions? Are there emotions related to how you feel about money that you came from nothing or the opposite, you received so much that you don't, you're not sure if you deserve it? Then eventually I move into, let's talk about the different vehicles you could choose to give through private foundations, donor-advised fund. I mentioned charitable gift annuities and so on. What assets do you want to use? Do you want to use real estate, stock, bonds? And then ultimately you get to the final point, which is, all right, what do I want to deploy? How much money am I deploying and for what? So I just mentioned that whole journey is important because you can't just start to divvy out money to different organizations and expect that it's going to feel good because you may not know why you did it. You may not know what you were looking for. You may not know what impact would look like. So I, I like to go through that journey with individuals and families, but ultimately I think the heart of your question is like, what would impact look like once we get there, once we start to deploy? And I would say that ultimately it's about what story is the nonprofit telling relative to its mission, its vision, its core values, where it's been as an organization, where it is today, and importantly, where it's going. Where is this organization going? What type of challenges does it see ahead? What types of solutions is it offering and has offered? And what would a dollar amount look like to be able to make that type of impact for that particular cause? So I'd say that's the same type of frame for the nonprofits to be able to tell that story to individuals or any sort of funder, foundations, corporations. And so on. So I would say that what people are looking for is impact, but they might say, do I wanna scale this and help a lot of people? Am I interested in only helping a few people? Am I interested in root cause? Am I interested in alleviating symptoms? Am I interested in just doing sort of a general unrestricted undesignated type of gift, or am I interested in going deep on one particular restricted cause or some sort of effect? So that's what I mean about kind of drilling down with them and saying, okay, here's what the results were. Here are the different nonprofits we've given to. Here's what their story is. Here's their report, essentially. Does that resonate with you? Is this what you were looking for? Do you want to go deeper with some of these organizations, or do you want to leave some of these organizations and go and do something else? I will say there's about two million nonprofits in the United States. A lot of them are doing incredibly good work. It's it's rare that you find a mission that you disagree with, or or even a value set or a a vision statement that you disagree with. I think to me what happens is what do you What does the organization do with that? Are they ready to go to the next level? Are they really thinking about what that, that long-term impact would look like, or even short-term impact? And are they conveying it well so that a donor or a giver can say, okay, that makes sense? One thing I will also say, obviously I'm talking about money here, but it can be the same story as what does the nonprofit need for volunteerism? Do you need people to come in and help you as a volunteer? Do you need people to come in and help your organization as a board member, a governing board member, or maybe an advisory board member? Do you need people to come into your organization and give you connections to community members? That's worth something. People who are good at making those warm introductions. And then finally, I would say Connections, not just connections, but also testimonials. Can you give a testimonial about that organization? That's also valuable. So these are called the 5 Ts: time, talent, treasure, ties, testimony. Those 5 Ts are ways people can give back. And that goes back to if the organization is clear about all the things I mentioned earlier, plus What calls to action they're looking for, what methods of engagement they're looking for. I think that can also be enlightening to people learning about it because then they know, I can make impact in lots of different ways. Like, I can make impact. Not only can the organization make impact, but I can too in all these 5 different ways.

Yeah. Well, you know, I think that a lot of people just assume that giving is really quite simple, but As you've been talking here, there really are a lot of complicated layers to it. A lot of it is just the emotions tied to, to money itself, but on top of that, the emotions that are connected with where's that money going, what's it really going to do, and, and is it going to make an impact. But yet so many professionals, high-income professionals and families, seem to kind of need guidance. They're just out there, just— oh, they may drop, you know, a few dollars here and a few dollars there, and it doesn't really mean much to them, and it doesn't really make much of an impact. So in terms of that, how do you help them to to really formulate an overall plan that can make an impact?

I think all the things I described earlier can be formulated into what is called a family focus statement to say, what are the 3 issue areas that you care most about, for example, and what are the 3 values that you want to Hold up. And if we can combine the values, state those values, state the issue areas, that would be the impact that you would want to make in the world. And then, then it's a matter of, okay, well, now let's seek out those organizations or those opportunities to be able to fulfill that. That exercise alone in helping people focus down is unique because most people are being overly solicited. for all kinds of different opportunities. They don't— they can't make heads or tails of it all. They, they just do it because, you know, Allen asked me to, so I'm going to give it. I'm going to give it to him, but it, it's not necessarily a meaningful cause to me, but it is meaningful to Allen, so I'm going to give it to Allen. That is nice, but it's not ultimately fulfilling for the individual. And that, that sitting down and doing that contemplation and, and real serious Just being able to sit down and say, yes, these things are important to me. These things are going to be meaningful as I go through my life. Maybe not just to me, but also maybe to my family, my kids. So I would say, or my grandkids, or maybe even future generations that don't even— I don't even know them. They're not even born yet, but that's going to be part of my legacy as well. So I'd say that it's, it's kind of really just breaking it down. To memorializing, I guess, if that's the way to put it, memorializing exactly what it is that, that somebody feels is important. And by the way, it can change. It's okay to change, but just to put it down on paper or, you know, some, some way to look at it and say, and reflect on that and say, is that where I am right now? Is that where my wife is? Is that where my husband is? Is that where my family is? Is that true? And if, if it is, great, you know, and again, it's also a talking point for. Kids and grandkids. Let me share this with my kids. Let me share this with my grandkids. Let me share it with my friends. Let me share it with the nonprofits that I'm working with. How about that? So they get to know where you are. So it's, it's just allowing somebody to really sit down and be, uh, thoughtful and intentional about these things. Because again, it's hard to know what it looks like to make impact if you yourself Are not sure what that is. If you don't know yourself what you're looking for, it's hard to get fulfillment and answers. But if you do, then it becomes hopefully an interesting and thoughtful and hopefully joyful journey because it's never going to be perfect. But hopefully it's something that ultimately is, um, something you can reflect on and say, I'm glad I did that. I'm glad we were doing those things. I've learned a lot. It's been enlightening. It's been fun. It's been surprising, maybe sometimes a little bit painful. But in the end, I'm glad I went through that.

Well, philanthropy is, as you have been describing it, it really is the totality of an ecosystem that certainly involves the person who's giving. But that's just a real small part of that. How is it that CPAs and wealth advisors, estate attorneys, and independent philanthropic advisors, how do you all come together to play a role in helping donors to give essentially more intentionally? I know that I, when I'm working with investors and helping them to select investment opportunities, I always want to start with the values, but they always want to jump right on into the investment and the money part of it, right? And do you experience the same thing? It's just, let's skip all of that.

Yeah. Yes, I'd say that as I'm— as you're saying that, I'm thinking of some families want to go from top to bottom. They want to start at the beginning and go right to the end, knowing that it's going to be a bumpy ride, knowing we're going to talk about a lot of things. Other people say, I just want to know how a donor advised fund works, or I just want to deploy money from my donor advised fund to some nonprofits. Who should I give to? So they're not— it's, it's sort of cutting me off at the knees a little bit because I'm sort of like, well, I could recommend these things, but I'm not sure. if that's what you want. I mean, I'm not sure if either of us are going to be satisfied if I give you these recommendations, because I'm not sure if you know what you're looking for. So, but to your point about bringing different advisors together, I think I would like to think that the CPA is having, in my ideal world, the CPA is having an intentional conversation with the client about all the things we just talked about, values and so on. It's opening up a conversation about how do you spend your time? How do you spend your money? Just tell me a little bit about you as an individual, you as a family. Even though that seems like a sidebar conversation, I think it can really color how important are saving taxes to people if you're talking to the CPA. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I mean, it's important to know that from the beginning. Also, maybe they're giving a lot of money away, but maybe they're not. So to have that context before you go in and start doing their taxes and assume that the only thing that's important to them is saving money on taxes, Is I think a mistake. The same with a wealth advisor. Back to your point, like the wealth advisor, do you do you just come in with the lens of all my client cares about is getting to retirement? All my client cares about is saving money on taxes. All my client cares about is making a lot of money. You know, just maybe yes, maybe no. But you want to sit down and talk about that because beyond all that, as you said earlier, is that going to be fulfilling? Is that going to be an empty life or? Is it gonna— is this leading to something? Where are we going? Where is this all going? And then I'd say also the trust and estates attorney is gonna come with a different lens. They're gonna say, all right, I think my client is trying to figure out what to do with their assets when they pass. Should they have a will? Should they have a trust? Should they be giving it to their family? Should they be giving it to charity? Like, these are complicated conversations, and especially back to the wealthy, not always, you know, being as happy as everyone thinks they are.

Mm-hmm.

They could have children with severe substance misuse issues, or they're not good at holding a job, or whatever the case may be. No amount of money is going to solve that problem for that child. And many times the parents are, are sort of grieving that and saying, I think I'd love to give them a lot of money. I actually, I think it's a bad idea. So therefore, how much money should I give them to make them feel secure? But then the rest of it, maybe I'm just giving that to nonprofits and making a big impact in some of the big areas. So at the end of the day, ideally, the CPA, the wealth advisor, the trust and estates attorney, the philanthropic advisor are all having intentional conversations about values, issues, impact. And then hopefully they're bringing each other in so that they can help holistically solve those— the problem or kind of lean toward the problem set. And be able to work on that together with each one coming together with his or her own lens to be able to do the best work they can do for the client. And what I just described is not common. To be able to get more than one advisor at the table is rare. If you can get all 5 or 6, that's very rare. It's happened maybe twice in my career where I've had an actual team of people surrounding the client and being able to— help to implement. Uh, but I'd say that's what I'm shooting for. And therefore, I think, again, it goes back to everybody gets to learn about the client beyond maybe their own limited viewpoint, which is they're just trying to save money on taxes, or they're just trying to have an amazing retirement, and they're just— whatever that is, right? They're just trying to, uh, they're just, they're just trying to get their will done or their trust done. Just, you know, there's more to it than that. And just to kind of peel back those layers. is important. Otherwise, people will go through those exercises and I think that they'll look back and go, I don't know, there's something missing there. I feel like people weren't asking me the right questions. I feel like I didn't, I didn't fulfill whatever it is that I was supposed to fulfill, but I didn't know what questions to ask. I didn't know who was supposed to ask me those questions, but I just know that it's not what I was hoping it would be. I feel like I did everything I was supposed to do and I'm still not happy. Why is that?

Right.

I think that's what we can, as practitioners, try to help avoid.

Yeah, it's interesting to me and listening to you talk and talk about the challenges you have in helping people to really look at this as a life plan. And because, I mean, I see the same thing in working with people in terms of where it is that they want to invest and how they want to invest. And I see those same challenges that And particularly at the end of the year, all they want is an investment that is going to write off a few taxes. And, you know, how fulfilling is that? Well, it isn't. Plus the fact it just isn't— it's not good planning.

Right.

It just, you know, until you really look at the whole picture, you just can't really put together a wealth development plan that includes, you know, philanthropy. So I don't know, I wonder how many people, how many advisors out there— you said it was only one or two times you've been in the group with a group of advisors, but even independently, I don't know. I suppose many of the advisors want to do like we want to do, but there's just resistance from people. Let's just get down to business.

And I would say yes, but I, I guess I'm just a believer that Let's at least offer the option to go there because it's kind of like any buying experience, quite frankly. If I happen to go into a restaurant and I want to eat a really amazing meal, I actually want to be upsold. I don't want to have tap water. I might want to have sparkling water. I might want to have an alcoholic drink. Like, I'm— you don't know what I want, but at least you can offer me that instead of assuming, oh, most people who come in here, they just want tap water. They just want a salad. And then they want to get out, you know, but I mean, maybe that's true, but I would say don't assume that about every customer that comes in. You want to be able to open up and let them know that these are different things we could do. The other reason for letting people know is because they may decide today they don't want to do it, but maybe later something will happen and they'll go, you know, remember you talked about we could sit down and talk about values? Well, there was just something I saw or happened to me recently. It made me want to do that. So, I would say that if we give the impression that we have to just get down to business, whatever that looks like, then they will take, they will follow suit as a client. But if we say, hey, we want to take a little bit more of an intentional approach here, let's just, I mean, part of our process is actually to take a deep breath, take a step back, look at what success fulfillment really looks like. It's not necessarily about the tax write-off or how much more you made in rate of return, or— I mean, that's all part of getting to where you're going, but it's not the goal. The goal isn't just to have— you're not going to go tell your friends, or maybe you will, but I saved a little money on taxes, or I made a little bit more of a return. That's okay, great. That may be good, good cocktail party conversation, but I don't think it's more like when I die, when I look back, will I go, hey, I saved a little money on taxes, I got a good rate of return. You're going to say, Did I do whatever it is that I felt was important because my time is running out here? Did I leave the impact I was looking to make? Did I make connections with people that I was looking to make? You know, we, we would all be so fortunate to be able to look back and go, yes, I did everything that I intended to do within the lifetime that I had. But I don't think most people can reasonably look back and do that because they, again, maybe they just didn't take the time to do that sort of proper intentional type of planning and action to get there. And if they did, I think that they would feel like it was more than just about these sort of tactical wins. It would be more like that holistic appreciation for whatever it is that they feel like they were supposed to do or wanted to do here, you know, on this Earth.

Well, As we close out here, Rick, when really we strip away all the strategies and the structure and all of that fades into the background, what do you most hope that people and the families or the organizations that you have worked with say was different because you helped them give with intention and purpose?

I think I would like to think that they stopped and found that the self-exploratory, you know, the fact that they were able to step back and reflect on things that they might not have otherwise reflected upon, and also importantly learned about each other. One of the things I sort of see and makes me sad a little bit is if a grandmother has a perception of a grandchild That isn't true, but that's their bias. So back to sort of opening up the dialogue, if you find out what's important to grandma and grandma finds out what's important to the grandchild, I think there'll be some really serious bonding happening there and probably something that the grandchild will remember most of their lives, if not their whole life. So I'd say it's helping to self-reflect, but then it's also helping to understand each other. Generationally, that would be something that I would say is powerful and unique and something that is substantive. And then once that is all understood and we, we were sort of feeling how that goes, then it goes back to what we were talking about before. Now let's get down to the tactical ways that we can make these things happen. But it starts with that really slow, thoughtful, intentional conversation. And that, I think, is, is what I hope my legacy is, is to be able to have said to people, like, I, I helped you take a pause and do this work, and you're glad you did it. Um, and hopefully I can also reflect that in my own life, not just help other people do it, but also do it myself. So the cobbler's kids don't have any shoes. Hopefully the cobbler's kids also have shoes. So I do it in my own family and, and reflect out what it is that I'm trying to help other people do.

Well, today's conversation was a reminder that meaningful philanthropy begins with intention, values, and the willingness to ask better questions about impact and legacy. If you'd like to learn more about Rick Peck's work or continue the conversation, you can connect with him at philanthropyguides.org. Or you can reach out directly at thephilanthropyguy@gmail.com. So before we close, I want to remind you of the gift I mentioned earlier, and that's Beyond the Paycheck. The Financial Clarity Compass is a private mini educational masterclass designed to help high-income professionals bring clarity and purpose to their wealth. You can access this gift at www.go.stetalker.com/beyond-paycheck. Thank you for joining me on Streams to Impact today. Until next time, may your wealth reflect what matters most to you. Thank you, Ric, for being with us today.

Thank you, Allen.

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