019- Valerie Hogan- Wealth Transfer, Women, and Wise Finances

Kim Moeller:It’s great, it’s so great to have you. And I just think that you’re really going to be able to touch on the pillar of finances, because we do talk about our five pillars, and finances, and I’m thinking also friendships because of the community that you build for the women in Chicago and even in your role in other places that affects outside of Chicago for women. So I love that this recording is going to be broadcast and people are hearing it now in the beginning part of 2024 because I think listening to you, the listener will find really practical tips on how to be a wise financial steward of the resources that God has entrusted her with. So why don’t we get started with… Before we go into your background, we always hear this phrase, the great wealth transfer.

Valerie Hogan:[inaudible 00:08:46] families. So I mean, that’s not really a linear career progression, let’s say. So I had an early retirement, first retirement for my career in my early 30s then. I stayed home for a little bit with my sons and then went back to law school part-time. And so I was in law school with them when they were in grade school, so interesting. They’re reading their Curious George and I’m reading a felony murder case next to them. So again, I’m like, “I don’t know what you’re doing, Lord, but…” So after that, because I had the science undergrad, then came the patent test. And I did think that it was, my licensure is out of California, so I thought I might be heading your direction actually to become an attorney after that time. I did serve with Christian Law Association and helped with religious liberties and civil liberties defense for part-time while I was in this process.So I thought I was going to end up in California as an attorney, and the Lord really just redirected. I was facilitating a Financial Peace Course at our church and my husband and I all along, I did not have a finance undergrad and he’s just quite skilled in that area. He’s an IT guy, he loves some spreadsheets. And so we had done that area of service all along with budget coaching and benevolence coaching. So I was serving in one of those and a lady approached me and said, our church, we had tried for a foundation, but we’d really like to do a planned giving department, like a hospital or university had. And my husband and I prayed about it and thought about it. And we had one plan and God’s like, “Oh, that’s so cute. Anywho, I’d like you to do this.” So that’s how I started in this area.

Kim Moeller:No, that’s beautiful, Valerie. And that is part ofthe purpose of this podcast is helping women understand the bigger picture of generosity. Obviously, it’s called the Generous Girl, and a lot of us give from our cash, which is often only 10% of our overall pie. A lot of us have the 90% in the non-cash assets category.And I think it’s easy to find a financial advisor who helps you, but doesn’tunderstand the bigger picture of generosity and what it means to even give these non-cash assets or give from a appreciated security. So if you are listening and that sounds foreign, then I would recommend that you contact your financial advisor and ask more questions. So anyways, that is very helpful andI’m glad that you shared that. When you mentioned the ministry with your mom and the widows, can you speak a little bit more about that?

And so folks told us, “Make a series of videos”, so we did, which became a one-minute radio feature which was Starting OverFinancially. Then the book came out from those two things called Wise Women Managing Money, and then the radio feature became Wise Women Managing Money because that morphed into the information we were putting out for widows. Other single women were coming saying, “Well, I’m divorced and he also did the finances, so I don’t really have confidence about that”, or single women getting started in their career were saying, “Well, I also don’t have any starting point. My parents did the best they could, but maybe I didn’t get training on this kind of thing.” And so we found this broad swath of women that were, “I’m really curious in wanting to learn this information.” So that’s how that came to be.-

Kim Moeller:Wow, that’s so beautiful. And I love just the intentionality on your mom’s side of things, too. I always think about Rick Warren at Saddleback and his phrase,”When hardship hits you, does it make you better or bitter?” And it’s such a choice, it’s such a fork in the road. And obviously your mom, through the tragedy of losing her husband, decided to allow that to make her better and help others, and the joy that comes in giving her a purpose. And I know you mentioned that, before we did the recording, that your two-word purpose statement from the Women Doing Well program is igniting boldness. And I see that in your mom, also that thread of giving that woman who is the widow or the single or the married person who has no knowledge. And should her husband get hit by a bus tomorrow, the igniting that boldness, that it’s in there and you’re so smart.I just want to say to the listener, you are smart. It doesn’t matter about your degree and  background. So many things are learnable today and the information we have is just really at our fingertips.

But it does involve I think an intentionality on each of our parts as we go into this new year and we say, okay, we think of a continuum of knowledge and feeling empowered where each listener can reflect and look and say, “Where am I? Am I at point A or am I closer to point Z?” And then figure out wherever you are on that continuum, what next steps do you want to take to move further down? So that when you finish 2024, and hopefully you’re hearing more of these incredible and amazing guests on theGenerous Girl Podcast that are inspiring you to take that nextstep, hopefully you can finish 2024 and say, “Wow, I’ve definitely moved further. I have more knowledge” or, “I decided to hire a certified financial planner or an investment advisor or an estate attorney. I decided to put my property or my bank account into my trust”, all of these practical steps.So if we dial it back a bit for the listener, can you identify a few of those practical tips, steps that you would say, “Okay, I would for sure make sure that you’ve done these items”? What would those be?

Valerie Hogan: But I would encourage all women listening, I have never met anybody in this industry, men or women, no matter how long they’ve been in the industry out of it who said, “Hey, you know what? I am crushing my budget, I am crushing all my investments. My legacy plan is set up, my family all knows I’m crushing all areas. I’m all good”, I have never been told that even one time by someone even off of Wall Street who’s been in this industry for decades. So you’re in good company if you have more things to learn, and if you’re just at a starting point.So I would say gathering an understanding of what you’ve got, and that may be all the way back to, I mean, for a widow, somebody who’s been in a difficult spot, there’s that, I’d call it the freeze. They’re stunned.

Kim Moeller: Sure, sure. Yes, because you do hear that often when the man passes away, one of the first things the woman does is change financial advisors because she often doesn’t have the relationship with that person. So I agree with you. And that goes back to Janice’s podcast, which aired toward the end of November, if you’re trying to search for it. Janice is the one who’s the co-founder of OneDegree Advisors, a financial advisory firm here in San Diego. But she talked about having your essential team around you. And sometimes I think we put people in our lives that are super important.

Kim Moeller:That’s so true. And that just reminds me of NCF because if people give, and you’ve got people that might have a small amount to give and then you have people that have a lot of resources that they want to give. And sometimes they say, “I really want to give those, but I have a great relationship with my investment advisor and I want him to manage the generosity money.” And they’re able to do that also, which I love that aspect. Okay, and that reminds me of just the basics of, we referred to it on numerous podcasts in season one, but talk about when you meet with women in Chicago and you say, do you have an NCF Giving Fund? What is that? Can you unpack that for the listener?

Valerie Hogan:Sure. I find a giving fund to be like a charitable checking account. And so I like to break down what we do at NCF in two buckets. We have the Donor-Advised Fund or what we call the Giving Fund, so that’s like the charitable checking account, so we’ll talk about that. And then we can also help with complex gifts.When someone wants to donate things like real estate or shares of a corporation or those kinds of things, there’s a lot of different things you can donate. A lot of them have great advantages to the kingdom, to saving on taxes.So those are two buckets of what we can help with. So that giving fund, that charitable checking account is really you’re moving money or you can donate other things to that account too. So stock, again, real estate.The complex things you can donate into that fund,it gets a great tax advantage, but then there’s a lot of flexibility. You can wait, you get that one receipt because that fund once a year. You can get receipts as you’re giving, but when you’re going for your accountant, and I don’t know if you’ve had this experience where you’re scraping along for the 20 receipts of all the different charities that you’ve worked with. So the great news is you can have one and then through that account, you can give to those different charities, your church, you can give anonymously.

Sometimes when we just want to give something one time, especially during Covid, we saw that where you want to give to something once, but you don’t necessarily want to be on their mailing list forever. So people love that anonymous option there. So lots of different options and flexibility with that account, and you can give it out over time.

Kim Moeller:And was it being an election year, too?Valerie Hogan:Absolutely. There’s just events that happen and you want to get things done within one year, but you may not have time to pick all the charities that you’d like to give to. So you know you want to move that money to the charitable bucket and do that with the right timing, but you may not know and you want to think about and research more charities and think of a better strategy for your giving and that gives you the time to do that. And your accountant will be rejoicing.

Kim Moeller:Very, very true. And what I like is I’ve had guests on the podcast before that have said they just so look forward to meeting with their investment advisor to find out how much money they can give. So I do want to encourage the listener,maybe you really haven’t exercised the muscle of giving very much in your life.And this type of a giving fund can be started with very small dollars.

And so for you, was it that season when you mentioned just all of a sudden you’re fostering three boys, six, seven, and eight, and you’re finding you’re going to law school part-time. Is that your story?Because that sounds amazing. I don’t even know how you did it.

Valerie Hogan:This was just a God thing, right? He somehow equips us because that was also in the process when my dad had ALS at that point.So it was, we had just adopted our three boys, or they were in the process of foster to adoption. I was going back to law school part-time, my dad was very sick. But I mean, what the Lord calls us to, He equips us. And so it was a season of adversity, a season of some sadness and hardship, but at the same time, it was so exciting and wonderful.