Good morning. It’s good to see you. It’s good be a part of this. It’s good to be seen. I’m here all the way from Los Angeles to talk to you about what has been a real help for me is charitable planned giving. And I can’t see your hands, but by a show of hands, how many of you are currently doing charitable planned giving in your practice? Not many.

I say that Sid Friedman told me, “In my late 20s, I disliked my job at 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles in the legal department. And I thought, ‘Gosh, what can I do differently?’ And Court of the Table, Court of the Table, Court of the Table for five straight years.” And Sid wound up putting me in a position where he said, “Cedric, have you ever considered charitable gifting?” And the charitable gifting was going to churches and synagogues and the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association and asking them, “If I could raise $5 million for you in the next two and a half to three years, would you be open to that idea?” And the answer was, of course they were.

So I started calling the advancement teams of UCLA, USC, Pepperdine where I went to law school and graduate school. They’re always asking me for money. They’re always asking me to give money for my daughters’ colleges and universities. So I started going back and asking them.

Charitable planned giving is something that we’re taught through the MDRT Foundation. My first year I made Court of the Table, they said, “Are you going to give any money to MDRT Foundation?”

I said, “I just got here. Give me a break. Let me take a deep breath.” But I wrote the check.

We are really big on gifting. I heard all these fantastic speakers before me and they all spoke about gifting. Scripture reads, “When much is given, much is required in return.” And for me, the more that I have spoken, 73 nonprofits this year in Los Angeles alone, about how can I do more than having you have cookie sales after church or dinners after Bible study, every single pastor, every single church that I approached said, “We would love to give more.”

And it means to economically support the success of what you believe in. I truly believe in our mission at MDRT. I believe that we can do more. Top of the Table is something that I thought, “Would I ever make it after four and a half years?” The late Sid Friedman when he spoke about a “proposed plan of action.” That action would be approach one person.

I approached the American Heart Association and they in turn said, “Come give us a pitch.” And I told them about the art of life insurance.

As the late, great Ben Feldman stated, “A piece of paper, a drop of ink, and a promise that you’ll be there for someone.” Why not do that with charities? We all have made the pinnacle. Today I’m only here briefly to tell you about an arrow that you can add to your quiver. An arrow that not many of us talk about.

I gave this speech, something similar, in Scottsdale and Quebec and San Francisco years ago. And I wonder, “Why don’t we give more charitable planned giving? Why not take a target market out and use leverage as they taught you in economics class and take a small amount of money with $100,000 with the owner being the 501(c)(3), which is the nonprofit?” For you across the pond, as Collin would say, for the ones who are giving back to their community.

The gentleman with the idea of eyesight or us giving water that’s clean to other countries or for what we do at MDRT. Which is giving back. Yes, we reached the pinnacle. I used to think, “Gosh, Top of the Table. Where else is there to go? How many cars can I buy? How much can I tithe at my church? How many suits can you buy?” But, at the end of the day, nothing makes me feel better than to be able to tell my pastor that we just raised $12 million for my church at First AME. Or that I just raised for USC Alumni Association $8 million. And charitable gifting is tantamount because it’s giving back what you’ve had.

Potential donors of influence, every single board that I’ve spoken at from Walt Disney in Los Angeles, Paramount Pictures to the Urban League, are people of means. They have money. And they in turn will say, “Cedric, will you help me with my other insurance? Will you help me with my investments? Will you help me with my retirement?” And it just opens a complete door for the people in this room. Last year, we got a total of more than 200 phone calls from people from MDRT saying they’ve always thought about charitable gifting but they didn’t know what to do. How do you get into it? Is it GRITs and GRATs and generation skipping transfers? It’s very simple.

Ownership, beneficiary, a piece of paper, a drop of ink. You can make a difference in millions of lives by presenting that to your universities, to your places of worship, and to charities. I think it’s a fantastic idea. For all the years I’ve made TOT now, I thought, “If I could just convince my fellow TOTers to put 5 percent of their practice into planned giving, what a difference we will make for us and for the world.”

I thank you for your time.

Cedric L. Watkins II, J.D., MBA, is a 26-year MDRT member from Los Angeles, California, with four Court of the Table and 13 Top of the Table qualifications. He is the president, CEO and managing partner of The Watkins Group & Associates, LLC, an estate planning and wealth management firm.