New subject: [arrl-odv:30302] Re: Life 70+ Membership

16 May 2020

      Dear ODV Members:

I need a refresher from the folks in the Development Office if Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) from members’ IRAs are an acceptable form of payment for the 70+ Life Membership program.  Privately, I agree with Barry that the program is not actuarily sound.  Nevertheless, the board voted to approve this arrangement, and we should make it as friendly as possible, especially to blunt criticism from naysayers. 

Under QCD rules, anyone who reaches the age of 70 ½ can donate up to $100,000. per year from their IRA to a qualifying non-profit organization like ARRL, and not have to pay income tax on that donation. Distributions from 401-K plans, pensions and other retirement plans are not eligible – just IRAs. Since QCDs became permanent in late 2015, there have been full page ads in QST in the last months of each year encouraging non-membership related contributions to ARRL using QCDs.  Do we want to apply this tax advantaged donation method to 70+ Life Membership?

 <https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/personal-finance/retirement/qcds-the-basics> https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/personal-finance/retirement/qcds-th...

73 de Bill Morine, N2COP

Vice Director – Roanoke Division

Representing ARRL members in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia

 <http://www.arrl-roanoke.org/> www.arrl-roanoke.org

Facebook Page: ARRL Roanoke Division

ARRL – The National Association for Amateur Radio

From: arrl-odv <arrl-odv-bounces@reflector.arrl.org> On Behalf Of W2RU - ARRL
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2020 7:36 AM
To: arrl-odv <arrl-odv@arrl.org>
Subject: [arrl-odv:30300] Re: Life 70+ Membership

Thus far I haven’t seen anything in this discussion of the merits of a $750 Seniors Life Membership (SLM) about “inflation” or “Present Value”, “Net Present Value”, etc.

As a senior citizen on a relatively fixed income, one of my greatest ongoing concerns is maintaining my family’s purchasing power and current life style in the years ahead.  If I believe overall inflation of the prices for goods and services I wish to procure during my remaining years is going to be greater than what I might earn on the $750 that I can elect to apply to an ARRL Life Membership — or not — then that Life Membership is potentially a bargain.

Furthermore, If I’m in a low income subset of seniors, paying out $750 now may be additionally advantageous to me because it may help reduce my total current assets and bring me in under a threshold value for state or federal assistance programs.  Even the most aggressive of government agency evaluations of my Assets would be hard put to claim my non-transferrable Life Membership had a resale value for my estate once I die.  If I don’t get the $750 Life Membership now, then each year going forward I have to take $50 (or whatever) from my limited income — income that may not be augmented by any of those assistance programs because I’m $600 (or whatever, again) above the threshold for that assistance.

Back when I obtained my Life Membership, I didn’t think too much about that stuff.  I simply assumed membership rates would stay at or above their existing level and I assumed (the folly of youth) that I would live forever; hence, a 25-year equivalence seemed like a super bargain to me.  And — for those of us who purchased a Life Membership a half century ago and are still here to talk about it — it truly was and is a super bargain.  But it wasn’t necessarily a super bargain for everyone.   

So I have a few thoughts:

1.  Don’t assume that all seniors are in the same financial bucket.  In fact, don’t assume that the seniors who are unhappy about this LM price understand Economics 101.  One of my best friends is fond of noting that hams are the “cheapest” category of people he knows.  Sometimes we have to treat the negative push-back as the same kind of “trash talk" that we overhear when hams are haggling with vendors at hamfest and convention flea markets.  Barry says it this way:  “Members always want a ‘deal’.”  Many do.  But not all.  We’re hearing from the ones that do.

2.  It seems to me that some of the unfavorable “push back” we’re receiving could be eliminated if we Board members had some “arrows in our quiver” (discussion points) that would help elevate the plane of the discussion with members.

3.  If I find something to dislike about the Seniors Life Membership, it’s the years of prior ARRL membership it requires.  In the years ahead, the incremental cost to the League for each senior it adds may or may not be $50.  Most companies (both profit and not-for-profit) that I know of would love to build additional incremental product sales once they’ve gotten their basic product lines and paid services up and running and per-unit costs established.  I would have structured the non-monetary requirements of this $750 SLM to bring chronic non-members into the ARRL fold during a period when these folks arguably should have more time for amateur radio and volunteering.  In other words, don’t blame the members for wanting too much for their $50/year if we can’t figure out how to make the incremental cost per member to deliver existing product offerings less than the per-member cost for the existing customer base.

4.  When all is said and done, the overarching “benefit” provided to members and non-members alike by ARRL has to be spectrum protection.  Somehow we have to do a better job of conveying the importance — and the total scope and cost — of our efforts in that arena.  That’s where ARRL shone in at least two major upheavals society has faced since the beginning of our hobby:  World Wars 1 and 2.  We should be showing how spectrum protection for amateur radio takes a multitude of forms — everything from the full-frontal lobbying efforts we engage in to Radiosport events that help prove band occupancy; to EmCom results that give us value and credibility at agencies that could be our biggest supporters in the years to come; to the exposure to electronics and RF that will lead our young people to careers that help maintain our technological strengths.  And perhaps we need to better acquaint our members with the worldwide shift by governments toward economically based spectrum allocation rather than those governments continuing to support historical and technologically based allocations.  That shift alone could be “World War 3” for amateur radio.  

Bud, W2RU

[arrl-odv:30301] Re: Life 70+ Membership

n2cop＠ec.rr.com

Middleton, Diane, W2DLM (CFO)

n2cop＠ec.rr.com

Niswander, Rick

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