Explore how women are leading in giving and legacy planning. Learn how to engage women as donors, decision-makers, and champions of long-term impact, insights valuable for both fundraisers and estate planners working to support women in shaping lasting philanthropic legacies.
Aquanetta Betts joined George Mason University in September 2022, where she is the Director of Planned Giving. Prior to joining George Mason University, she served for nearly five years as the Senior Executive Director of Planned Giving for World Vision (Eastern region of the U.S.).
Before her planned giving roles within organizations, Aquanetta worked for 11 years as an estate planning attorney, helping clients by drafting planned giving and estate agreements that reflected their charitable intent. Her practice was focused on wills, trusts, and estates. She is a licensed attorney in the District of Columbia and Maryland.
Aquanetta has served as a pro bono attorney for several nonprofit organizations in the Baltimore, Maryland, area. She holds leadership positions with the National Bar Association’s Real Property, Trusts, and Estates Section, the Baltimore Estate Planning Council, and the National Capital Gift Planners Council. She is a past president of the Chesapeake Planned Giving Council and currently serves on the boards of the National Capital Gift Planning Council and the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners.
Aquanetta holds designations as a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy®, an Accredited Estate Planner®, and a Certified Fund Raising Executive. She earned her Juris Doctorate from Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad College of Law, and her Bachelor of Arts in English from Florida International University. Aquanetta’s interests include book clubs, traveling, and mentoring early career professionals.
What motivates someone to include a charitable gift in their estate? Who are your strongest planned giving prospects, and how can you effectively reach them? How should you respond when someone “raises their hand” through marketing? This session explores the data, behavioral science, and messaging strategies that influence planned giving decisions. Whether you're building a program from the ground up or looking to enhance an already successful effort, you'll leave with practical tools and ideas that can be adapted to programs and budgets of all sizes. Members of the Virginia Gift Planning Council board will share marketing samples from their organizations, and attendees are encouraged to bring any samples they would like to share.
Ann A. Deppman, J.D., serves as Assistant Vice President, Planned Giving at Virginia Commonwealth University. At VCU Ann has been charged with building the university’s first comprehensive gift planning program with an emphasis on collaborative fundraising in a highly matrixed organization. Previously, Ann led gift planning efforts at the MCV Foundation on VCU’s medical campus and at Oberlin College. At Oberlin, Ann oversaw a program that was consistently recognized as an industry leader with one of the highest constituent participation rates in planned giving among peer institutions. Ann’s additional experience at Oberlin includes serving as a dean, program director, and pre-law advisor. Ann began her career as general practice attorney. Ann graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Middlebury College and received her J.D. from Vermont Law School. She is a member of the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners and past president of the Virginia Gift Planning Council.
As planned giving professionals and fundraisers, we are on the precipice of the largest transfer of wealth in human history, with an estimated $35,000,000,000,000 distributed over the coming years to individuals and charitable organizations. While this provides an unprecedented opportunity for philanthropic giving, it also comes with an increasing challenge to our industry. Cognitive impairment - such as Alzheimer’s Disease or dementia - in elderly donors is on the rise, which can create difficult ethical and legal issues for our professionals when discussing charitable gifts. Are you prepared for this inevitable scenario?
This session will teach attendees about cognitive impairment in donor populations, how to identify the top signs, and best practices on how best to handle these situations through an ethical and legal lens before applying what is learned to case studies pulled from the real experiences of fundraisers and planned giving professionals in the field today.
Tara Adams, Ed.M. JD, has spent her professional career dedicated to education, serving in roles within higher education administration at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, University of Illinois College of Law at Urbana-Champaign, and North Carolina State University. She also worked in the Judicial Education division at the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, assisting in the development and execution of continuing legal education for the state judiciary. In addition to working for half a decade in higher education fundraising, Tara also spent years raising funds as a member of the Auxiliary Board for the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois.
Tara received her B.S. in finance and international business from Illinois State University. She received her Ed.M. and JD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where Tara is also a current Ph.D. student focusing on Education Policy, Organization & Leadership. She is the co-founder of the Cognitive Empowerment Consulting Group, LLC and is dedicated to helping other professionals navigate ethical and legal issues in the development community.
As an experienced entrepreneur and Certified Fund Raising Executive, Anthony Pomonis has spent the last two-plus decades helping individuals and organizations achieve their goals. He has served as a major gift officer for the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Illinois, a generalist at the University of Illinois Foundation, and team lead at the University of Central Florida. In his roles, Anthony developed strategies and initiatives that resulted in philanthropic support of the largest land-grant in the Big 10, the three Universities of the Illinois System, and the largest college at UCF, the second-largest university in the country.
Anthony graduated with his B.A. in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2002, and began a 15-year journey as an entrepreneur, opening and running no fewer than 5 regional restaurants. He served on the Regional Executive Board of Big Brothers Big Sisters (2010–2015), the executive board of his local Greek Orthodox Church (2014-2022), and the Kirby Medical Foundation Board (2020-2022); he currently sits on the Orthodox Christian Fellowship National Board and is an at-large board member for the Charitable Gift Planners of Central Florida. Anthony considers himself to be a lifelong learner, and has finished his College for Financial Planning coursework to sit for the CFP exam. He is the co-founder of the Cognitive Empowerment Consulting Group, LLC.
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