America is a Given Place: Gift Planning in U.S. History

Our Program

A knowledge of history can become part of your professional toolkit. America is a Given Place illustrates why charitable bequests and trusts were extremely important in colonial America. From our earliest days as an independent nation, gift planning has depended on cooperation among nonprofits and bankers, attorneys and other professionals. You may be surprised to see how American colleges, churches, and other nonprofits prioritized gift planning in the Roaring 1920s. Many gift planners began their careers in the 1960s. A series of ethical crises and Federal reform laws between 1969 and 1995 shaped today’s gift planning landscape and led volunteers to organize a national association of gift planners. To understand the present, we have to know how we got here.

Our Presenter

America is a Given Place is based on Ron Brown’s 40 years as a charitable gift planner, including 15 years as director of gift planning at Princeton University, his alma mater. He served on the boards of the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners and the American Council on Gift Annuities, which in 2025 named him a lifetime honorary member of its Board of Directors. In 2019 the Philanthropic Planning Group of Greater New York selected Ron for a distinguished service award.

Ron was trained as a professional historian 35 years ago and has devoted thousands of hours to scholarly research and writing. He published some of the results in A History of Charitable Gift Planning (Amazon 2017) and in numerous articles and presentations.

Our Schedule

• 10:00 a.m. Registration Begins/Member Networking/Coffee 
• 10:30 a.m. Program Begins
• 11:30 a.m. Program Concludes/Q&A
• 12:00 p.m. Adjourn/Box Lunches

Registration Fees

• There is no fee for members to attend, though they should register in advance (members should be logged-in to access the member rate).
• The nonmember fee is $75.00. Nonmembers can also join now and then register at no additional cost.