Death Manuals, Donor-Advised Funds, and the Legacy You Leave

Most people don’t give at year-end because they’re saints. They give because of taxes… and then hope the IRS sees it the way they do. In this episode, I bring back estate planning attorney Griffin Bridgers and walk through year-end giving in four parts: Hook & Setup, The BS We’re Fed, No BS Reality, and Do This Next.

In the Hook & Setup, we talk about why year-end giving turns into chaos so easily — last-minute donations, rushed transfers, and families confusing “being generous” with “throwing money at the calendar.” Griffin breaks down the timing problem most people ignore: if you’re wiring money or donating stock on December 30th, you’re not planning, you’re gambling on processing times and paperwork.

In The BS We’re Fed, we call out the myths: “Just give by 12/31 and you’re good,” “cash is king,” and “philanthropy is for the ultra-wealthy.” Griffin walks through how the $19,000 annual exclusion, the massive lifetime exemption, and the idea of foundations vs. donor-advised funds (DAFs) really work — not how social media and marketing spin it.

Then we move into No BS Reality. We talk about starting with what you actually want to leave behind — for your family and for causes you care about — and working backward from there. We dig into why relying only on thick legal documents is a trap if nobody can access your accounts, devices, or logins. This is where Griffin introduces his Death Manual concept and his Inherit Substack, where he’s building out the playbook for organizing your real life, not just your paperwork.

Finally, in Do This Next, we get practical. We lay out simple steps: pick your giving strategy for this year, decide what you’re actually going to give (cash, stock, or something else) with your CPA, start your own Death Manual with one password and one account list, and choose a “giving day” you repeat every year instead of panicking at the deadline.

If you’ve ever said, “I know I need to get my will done” and then ghosted the process for years, this episode is your reset button — not perfect, not theoretical, just real moves to stop leaving a mess behind.

🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube:
 https://youtu.be/q85Ub9rxVNk

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