Looking to get free lasagna from a neighbor or to support a great cause? Benefit from the win-win-win strategy of supporting nonprofit charitable organizations that match your passions. 

Marc Ackerman is involved directly in a handful of nonprofit charitable organizations and understands the joy and fulfillment that come from giving his money and significant amounts of his time to them. 

As vice chair of the board of the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, for example, Ackerman knows they can raise the funds to buy iPads for every apparatus to facilitate communications or purchase a new helicopter. Those expenses are not covered in the annual municipal budget of one of the largest fire departments in the U.S., 97 percent of which goes to pay the salaries and pensions of the 3,500 firefighters, paramedics and sworn personnel who have chosen to risk their lives keeping Los Angeles safe. 

“They can’t call the Mayor of Los Angeles in the middle of the night and say, ‘Hey, we need another helicopter. Can you give us an additional $3 or $4 million dollars in the budget?’” Ackerman says. 

In his role as Managing Director, Investments, Private Wealth Financial Advisor for IFC Private Wealth Management Group of Wells Fargo Advisors in Los Angeles, Ackerman also knows the joy and fulfillment for himself or his clients that come with championing a nonprofit charitable foundation that matches someone’s values and passions. Making that choice can heighten the life of the person so that they feel especially good about giving that also represents a way to reduce their taxable income. 

Ackerman became involved in supporting the Los Angeles Fire Department after he and the rest of the country witnessed the heroics of first responders during the tragic events of 911, when they so valiantly performed to aid New Yorkers under terrorist attack. He also remembers the fact that among the thousands of New Yorkers who lost their lives that day were financial and investment professionals.  

He and his team diligently advise and often assist their clients to identify a charitable organization that somehow engages them personally. Ackerman has several favorite causes. 

“In 2008, I found that I am really compassionate about serving foster youth, as some of the forgotten people right in our neighborhoods,” he says. “So, if I give $100,000 to the Red Cross to help a group of 25,000 foster youth in LA, I will get more fulfillment and joy, and that transformation is more real and aggressive in me if I match it with this cause I am passionate about.”  

Through their practice, Ackerman and his team at Wells Fargo advise everyone to place philanthropy as their primary focus.  

“We have a whole service wealth and investment management practice, but then planning and specifically philanthropy is right up there with, What are your goals? It’s above everything else,” he says. “We believe giving and service are transformational. It’s a way to achieve joy, find purpose and have fulfillment in life, and that is our core belief and our experience both through the 14 members of our team and all of our clients.” 

He cites several prominent research studies that support their central tenet of employing philanthropic giving or investment that will result in a range of health benefits and experiencing joy and fulfillment: Harvard Business School, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Cleveland Clinic. 

“Happier people give more, giving indeed causes increased happiness, and that these two relationships may operate in a circular fashion,” enthuses the Harvard study. 

When having conversations about charitable giving with their clients, Ackerman and his financial advisors emphasize that a person’s investment portfolio should match his or her values in the same way that their philanthropic giving should. They advise or help their clients identify those charitable organizations that align with their personal interests, commitments and passions. 

“People are in different places in their philanthropic efforts, and it really has nothing to do with how much money someone has or how much cash flow,” Ackerman observes. “We’ve learned there is no right or wrong way, so we try to meet everyone where they are in their philanthropic journey.” 

As for the key tax advantages, Ackerman says, the starting point of an effective charitable giving strategy is to give cash to a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, then you can deduct up to 60 percent of your adjusted gross income (AGI). However, you should consult with your financial advisor because, depending on the type of contribution and the organization, you may be limited to 20 percent, 30 percent or 50 percent. 

“If you give appreciated stock, which is another good strategy, you can deduct up to 30 percent of your AGI,” Ackerman informs. “Often, a combination of those two donations might be the most efficient option for someone.” 

Additionally, Ackerman recommends working with your financial advisor to create a donor-advised fund to guide them as to where you want your charitable contributions to be distributed. This fund is especially effective when you realize significant gains during the tax year from investment transactions or the sale of a business or real estate because it creates a charitable giving plan that helps reduce your tax bill. 

“Sometimes people choose the American Cancer Society or the American Red Cross as a catch-all beneficiary,” he says. “We find a donor-advised fund to be a more effective catch all because that gives us and that individual time to thoughtfully identify where their dollars should go, and they can take the time to allocate them to a place that’s needed and hopefully aligned with what they want to do.” 

A Selection of Charitable Foundations That May Fire Your Passion for Giving 

Discussing his firm and his team’s commitment to spreading the philanthropic-focused approach to donating with tax benefits, Ackerman concludes: “We speak to roughly 8,000 financial advisors in a year at conferences. If we can just give them one idea of how they can use philanthropy in their practice, you see the leveraging that can happen with their clients.” 

He and his advisor team are all involved in a variety of other charitable organizations, including the following: 

Focusing Philanthropy: Founded by Larry and Cathy Gilson and funded through their family’s philanthropy, the organization exists solely to help people give better by matching their passions and goals with nonprofits. Staff vet each organization, and Focusing Philanthropy pays for all overhead, so that the individual’s donation goes entirely to that charitable organization. 

As examples, Ackerman cites two key foundations supported by Focusing Philanthropy: Refugee Point and Planting Trees for Resilience. 

Sentinel Foundation works to combat child exploitation through countering sex trafficking, providing crisis response, training law enforcement, and preserving human life; 100% of donations go to child rescue. 

Seva Foundation: Founded in 1978 on the fact that 4 out of 5 people who are blind don’t have to be, the foundation sends doctors around the world to provide sight-saving surgeries, eyeglass, medicine, and other eye care services to more than 50 million people in underserved communities, 

The CASA/GAL Model (Court-Appointed Special Advocates/Guardians Ad Litem): Appointed by judges to serve children’s best interests, these volunteers advocate on behalf of children who are victims of abuse or neglect. This group became important to Ackerman, he says, because of his interest in helping foster youth, who rely on this organization’s volunteers to guide them through the often complicated and confusing court system. 

One Acre Fund: This entity provides farmers in Sub-Saharan African – often earning only $1 a day – with the farm supplies and training they need to grow more food and earn more money. They work in the nine countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that produce 80% of the continent’s food to help the farmers feed their families and improve their lives. 

Chrysalis: The California-focused organization helps people prepare for, find, and keep jobs. All of its services are free. Many of the individuals who receive training have formerly been incarcerated or have faced other barriers to employment that Chrysalis’ programs help them overcome. 

Per Scholas: On the other side of the country, based in The Bronx, New York City, Per Scholas was founded in 1995. The organization provides tuition-free technology training at multiple locations to unemployed or underemployed adults for careers as IT professionals along with workforce development programs.  

Acres of Love: Another direct hit for Ackerman because of his interest in helping foster youth, this group furnishes high-quality, family-based, holistic care to children orphaned or abandoned in South Africa. Their goal is to raise “a generation who understands they are a beautiful gift to our family and the world.” 

Wild Horses, Books for Under-served Children, and Lasagna: 3 More Compelling Charitable Choices 

Ashley Avis, co-founder of The Wild Beauty Foundation with her husband Edward Winters, spent a significant amount of her childhood and youth riding horses, enough time to know she liked being “among the world of horses.” She rode as a competitive equestrian until she was seventeen. Part of her experience included immersing herself in the famed equine classic novels Black Beauty and The Black Stallion.  

After graduating with a double degree in International Business and Marketing from Manhattan College in Riverdale, Avis worked briefly as a journalist and did a number of other odd jobs to “stay alive in New York City,” she says. She continued to build her career as a writer and director, and after about a decade of independent film work, she was hired to write, direct and edit the reimagining of the film Black Beauty for Disney+. Released in 2020, the film starred Oscar winner Kate Winslet as the voice of Beauty.  

Avis knew Anna Sewell’s classic novel that has sold 50 million copies worldwide as one of the best-selling books of all time was actually an animal welfare plea as much as a children’s book, with the goal of exposing the cruelty suffered by cab and carriage horses of Sewell’s time. While doing extensive research to find a modern-day parallel to contemporize the story, Avis learned of the disturbing plight of wild horses in the American West that were being cruelly rounded up and exterminated.  

As a lifelong lover of horses, she became deeply troubled, wondering how many people don’t know this is happening, and why aren’t the horses being protected? 

“That took me down the rabbit hole of realizing the corruption behind the issue, the fact that wild horses are being eradicated to give deference to tax-subsidized livestock companies that are grazing on our public lands,” she recalls. “It’s horrifying that thousands of wild horses are being illegally adopted through the Bureau of Land Management’s incentive program and then flipped into the slaughter pipeline for people to make money.” 

After a couple years of planning, she and her husband launched The Wild Beauty Foundation in 2020. One Sunday afternoon, they dove directly into the fray when they decided to rescue one of the horses from a lot of 13 scheduled to be shipped to “the kill buyer” that Tuesday. One of the horses was pregnant. 

“We decided to adopt this one horse, and that turned into deciding to rescue all 13 and just take them all sight unseen,” Avis says of what they now call The Lucky 13. “That’s where my Black Beauty bonus money went!” 

Co-founded with her husband of the boutique film production company Winterstone Pictures in Los Angeles, she went on to film the recently released documentary Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West about this assault on wild and some domestic horses. The film has already won awards, and they have engaged a publicity firm that specializes in promoting films for Academy Award nominations. Avis hopes their film will do for wild horses what Blackfish did to expose the abuses of whales at Sea World or The Cove did to protect dolphins. 

In June, Avis and Winters presented a special screening of the film for members of Congress in Washington, D.C. Their goal is to support passing of the Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act of 2023 that, among other protections, would stop the use of certain aircraft such as helicopters to roundup horses in a brutal fashion that frightens and physically injures or kills many of the horses. 

“This bill is truly important, because it would be the first major step in ending the animal cruelty aspect of this problem,” Avis says. “Why we are chasing a federally protected flight animal with a helicopter in 2023 is just preposterous to me.” 

The Wild Beauty Foundation is implementing a full slate of initiatives to address the situation, including extensive educational programs for children that feature a letter- writing campaign to their Congressional and Senate representatives and President Biden.  

“We want to inspire children to take agency and know that despite being kids, their voices matter, too,” Avis says. 

“What the Wild Beauty Foundation is doing is quite impressive,” says Leonard Kim of AdvisorCheck. “They are helping to prevent our native horses to America from being extinct,” Leonard continued. 

They are also launching a pilot program in the fall called “Wild Horse Week” that will present a week-long series of curricula developed by a team of experts for children in schools, youth groups, faith-based groups, etc. The free downloadable package of materials will provide a comprehensive guide to the vital role of wild and domestic horses throughout history and their relevance today. They are also encouraging adults to serve as advocates and write letters to their reps and share the documentary through public and private viewings.  

To learn more, check out the beautiful, compelling photographs, film cinematography and information at The Wild Beauty Foundation website or become part of the effort to save our country’s wild horses from cruel and unnecessary roundups at I Stand With Wild Horses. 

Promoting Healing for Children Through Reading Books 

The World Literacy Foundation (aka, USA Reads) is driven by the mission of ensuring that children all over the world, no matter their socio-economic status, possess the literacy skills and opportunities to read, enjoy and learn from books. We have similar goals with our media wing, AdvisorCheck Presents: Making Money Easy, to help each American become even more financially literate so they can be savvy about their own finances, through talking about money in more fun atmospheres, such as TV shows, movies, celebrities, athletes, business personalities, real life people and more. After the World Literacy Foundation spent a year of extensive research and consulting with pediatric experts, the foundation launched a new initiative earlier this year: Read for Wellness. 

According to Maria Gregory, senior manager, partnership & program development for the foundation, the fledgling program is tailored to meet the specialized reading needs of underserved children who have been diagnosed with a serious illness. The foundation continues to grow and evolve the program to aid foster youth and other underserved children, as well. 

Gregory, who considers the program she oversees to be a personal passion project, says they know the heart of Read for Wellness is that reading can be healing. The program, she says, uses reading-based intervention to equip children who have suffered early adversity and trauma through empowering books that foster academic and mental health and a joy for reading.  

They also realize that children who experience health problem can potentially impact them for the rest of their lives. The child’s challenge is exacerbated if their experience entails displacement from their home, and it is common for them to fall behind in development and education and struggle emotionally.  

Recognizing this problem, she says, the program strives to help prevent, mitigate, and address the academic and mental health consequences that can result from adverse experiences. According to Gregory, literacy and wellness go hand in hand, and the benefits of books and stories are a powerful support tool for fostering a child’s capacity to learn, grow, heal, bond, and overcome obstacles.   

This year, a grant from Teachers Credit Union (TCU) enabled the foundation to launch the Read for Wellness program at Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health in Indianapolis, IN, to serve kids who faced long-term illnesses such as cancer, sickle cell anemia, and heart disease. 

  

The fast-growing initiative has already moved into the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, so that mothers can read to their babies shortly after birth to encourage an early appreciation of words and stories and share that warm bonding experience. In the coming years, the foundation plans to continue expanding the program to other hospitals and to underserved and impoverished children outside of medical settings. 

Currently, Read for Wellness provides a diverse variety of books for children of differing age groups to address their situation dealing with a serious illness. The books might be informative or health specific. However, they also offer a number of books that enable kids to read for fun and just enjoy a great story. The goal of those books is to make the child laugh or serve as a way to escape from the anxieties, uncertainties or loneliness of trying to understand their condition and the trauma involved and possibly being hospital- or house-bound. 

In addition, the program features a special financial literacy component. Especially when providing books to increase basic reading skills for underserved children whose illnesses have caused them to miss school and lag behind in their education, Gregory explains, they know from their research that literacy is also a way to stop the cycle of poverty.  

In fact, when TCU learned one of the categories included books for financial literacy, it was a perfect fit. That opened the doors for a new area of funding interest in the financial sector, Gregory informs, such as banks, credit unions, brokerage firms, investment firms, etc. 

Thus, the financial literacy section of the Read for Wellness library list includes books such as Finance 101 for Kids: Money Lessons by Walter Andal; Moneytopia Series: Saving, Investing, Earning by Shanshan Peer; Rock, Brock and the Savings Shock by Sheila Bair; and The Berenstain Bears Dollars & Sense by S. Berenstain. 

For more information, contact Gregory at 815-451-5561. 

Leveraging Lasagna to Feed Those in Need and Enhancing Community Kindness 

Coming up with the idea for Lasagna Love was one of life’s happy accidents, says founder Rhiannon Menn. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, she found herself feeling helpless and searching for something she could do to serve her community. 

“I love cooking, so I just started making meals and dropping them off, mostly to moms I found through Facebook groups,” she remembers. “I didn’t know any of them. I just posted saying, ‘My toddler and I are cooking, if you need a home-cooked meal. I know we are all walking through different struggles right now. Doesn’t matter what that struggle looks like. Let us help.’” 

From there, her philanthropic pasta project just exploded, she says. In addition to requests for a homemade meal, Menn began receiving messages from people asking if they could do some lasagna baking themselves to help out. 

“If there were enough families to go around, was the phrase everyone used,” she says. “There are always enough families to aground, so Lasagna Love was born quite organically from this desire of the community to come together.” 

Today, Menn’s organization boasts a network of more than 45,000 volunteers throughout the U.S., Canada and Australia. Each week, the compassionate chefs feed somewhere between 2,500 to 3,000 families, depending on the week, or about 10,000 people from all of the volunteers who are active that week. To keep the operating budget low, she runs a lean outfit with a small core staff complemented by more than 300 volunteers that do everything from manage districts and handle customer support to implement public relations and marketing initiatives. 

Lasagna Love relies on a volunteer portal they developed, and new volunteers sign up every week. Families or individual requestors in need who have heard about the delicious and free pasta repasts check to see if there is a Lasagna Love in their area and submit their request. 

“We take all of the volunteers who were signed up for that week, and we match as many of them together as possible,” Menn explains. “So we’re creating that one-on-one, person-to-person connection in the community, and the volunteer will coordinate a drop-off time and deliver a meal to the family in need. Then the next week, the whole cycle starts over again.” 

Through social media and direct connections with the Lasagna Love volunteers, Menn receives appreciative notes from meal recipients all the time. “With the lasagna we received, I was able to feed my family, my neighbors, and a close friend and her son,” wrote one person. “That’s three families. People can really help one another, if you try.” 

The last comment relates to the three goals of Lasagna Love’s mission: Feed families. Spread kindness. Strengthen communities. 

“Food is the vehicle for what we do, but that kindness piece actually has a significant impact,” Menn says. “We do ongoing surveys with our recipients, and somewhere between 80% and 90% report that they feel more connected to and supported by their community. We also know that the individual who received the meal, in most cases, goes on to do something kind for somebody else in their community. It’s that ripple effect of kindness that we believe has the power to strengthen communities over time.” 

Running Lasagna Love prevents Menn from doing as much cooking as she enjoyed when she started, but she realizes she’s having a bigger impact through her foundation. When she does find time in the kitchen to whip up some of her culinary creations at least once or twice a month, she makes sure to maximize the opportunity as a teaching moment. 

“My daughter is in school now, so we’ll invite her friends over, and we’ll have a group of eight to ten kids all making lasagnas together,” she says. “We’ll talk about the families that the meals are going to, what it means to stand up for people in your community, and  the impact that kindness has, so it’s actually quite wonderful when we do get to come together.” 

Through inflation, some of us are fortunate to give to other causes, which will inevitably bring down our taxable income. Some of us are in not so fortunate situations, where a charity like Lasagna Love could really help us in our deepest times of need. No matter what your situation is, giving back and receiving is a way for us all to build our communities together, so we can make it through any hurdles that come our way. 

If you’re ready to start donating to a specific cause and want a financial advisor to show you how to get the most benefit out of your contributions, you can find one in your area using our search tool. If you want to get more insights like this so you can learn about money and various programs designed to help people from all walks of life, make sure to take a moment to subscribe to AdvisorCheck Presents: Making Money Easy. We look forward to seeing your future success. 

Written by Christopher Johnston 

Fact checked by Billy Quirk 

Reviewed by KJ Kim  

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