Bruce E. Bigelow Board Member
A founding partner of Charitable Development Consulting, Dr. Bigelow served as Senior Vice President at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, from 1989-2003. Prior to that appointment, he was the Associate Vice President for Development and, earlier, the Director of Planned and Major Gifts at Gettysburg College. While at Gettysburg and Hood, he directed three comprehensive campaigns and built programs that consistently produced gifts comparable to many colleges with larger staffs, bringing in $8-12 million per year from an alumnae base of roughly 12,000-13,000, with an average cost per dollar raised of 10 percent, well under the national average of 16 percent.
During his three years on the Board of Directors of the National Committee on Planned Giving (now known as the National Association of Charitable Gift Planning), DR, Bigelow chaired the national task force on planned giving research for NCPG and wrote and directed the first and, to date, only two national surveys of donors motivations and behaviors across the broad planned giving spectrum. He also chaired the Committee on International Outreach and helped to write the national standards of conduct for planned giving professionals. He also recently chaired a national Partnership of Philanthropic Planners Task Force that has developed guidelines for counting and reporting planned gifts, especially in a campaign context, a set of recommendations that now guides the policies for countless campaigns across the country. In 1992 he chaired the national NCPG Annual Conference. In addition to his role as a founding member and past president of the Chesapeake Planned Giving Council in Baltimore, he is a member the CANARAS Group, a select group of fifteen planned gift professionals from such colleges and universities as Cornell, Princeton, Duke, Colgate and Hamilton, which he chaired in 1997. He is or has been a member of the editorial boards of both the Journal of Gift Planning and Planned Giving Today, the two most widely respected publications in the country devoted to gift planning. He has written extensively in the field of planned giving and has presented a number of papers at a variety of development seminars and conferences, including NCPG/PPP national and regional conferences, a variety of CASE conferences, and the American Council on Gift Annuities. In his many presentations, he has addressed issues as diverse as the intricacies of real estate transactions and Installment Bargain Sales, the key essentials of a successful planned giving program, how to integrate faculty into a planned giving marketing plan, how to create and effectively use gift acceptance policies, and how to turn planned gifts into current cash.
Dr. Bigelow has conducted a number of audits and directed a wide-ranging series of campaigns for charitable organizations, ranging from small liberal arts colleges to social service organizations to private primary and secondary schools and national membership foundations. Some of his firm’s services have encompassed the broad range of fundraising; some have focused on a more specific objective, such as preparing for a capital or endowment campaign, using board members wisely and preparing board members to assess the effectiveness of development programs, or developing and nurturing a planned giving program. He serves as a mentor for a variety of organizational planned giving programs, providing technical counsel as well as strategic advice to a wide range of nonprofits. He and his firm have conducted a series of campaign feasibility studies for a number of diverse charitable organizations, almost all of which have retained them as continuing campaign counsel.
A strong believer in the value of community involvement, Dr. Bigelow has served on a number of Boards, including the Frederick MD YMCA, the Barnesville School, the Adams County Community Foundation, and Maryland Citizens for the Arts. His primary service work focuses on Project Gettysburg/Leon, a sister-city project linking the citizens of Gettysburg, PA, and Leon, Nicaragua. As a past President and Treasurer of PGL, he regularly visits Nicaragua, plans and hosts delegations, and chairs a series of programs to increase international understanding.
Before entering the development field in 1983, he taught Eastern European history for eight years at Denison University, receiving tenure there, while leading a series of summer semester programs to Yugoslavia for Colgate University. He also served for four years as the liaison between the research and program offices of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Washington, D.C. Dr. Bigelow has a BA from the College of Wooster in mathematics and history and both an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago. He also received a number of grants and awards, including a Fulbright research grant to Yugoslavia.
David Thoroughman Board Member
David is the co-founder of MortarStone, a software analytics company serving churches nationally. In his role as president, David’s vision is to reshape how churches use data to identify and educate givers in the area of stewardship and generosity. David has the honor and privilege of helping thousands of churches track over $15 billion of giving for the cause of Christ. David’s work includes analyzing operational effectiveness and applying generosity strategies that help churches understand how to disciple their people more fully.
Prior to starting MortarStone, David spent nearly two decades in the mortgage banking industry, where he built a company that was licensed in seven states with approximately 200 employees.
David lives with his wife in Reno, NV, where they enjoy hiking, skiing, cooking, and mentoring church leaders on the topic of asset-based giving.
Mike Childs Board Member
Michael “Mike” R. Childs is a founding partner of 724 Stewardship Consulting, a concierge services firm that assists Christian families in developing and implementing advanced, comprehensive, master stewardship plans to enable them to optimize their Kingdom impact with all that the Lord has entrusted to them.
724 Stewardship Consulting is a member of the Stewardship Resource Group, which serves Christian ministries, colleges, and churches.
He also serves as a Founding Partner for 724 Holdings, LLC, a national Registered Investment Advisory platform serving Christian advisors and their firms with faith-based professional services. He also continues to oversee CIG Financial Services, the family office founded by his father in Archbold, Ohio, in 1984. CIG’s staff of six advisors and seven staff care for over 1,200 households in 23 states.
Mike serves on several Christian and community nonprofit boards ranging from faith-based mental wellness, church education, scholarship development, and mission outreach in Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, and Africa. He also supports Village Project Africa, a school in Africa that serves more than 1,000 students in need of education as well as room and board.
Most recently, Mike has served on the Taylor University Board of Visitors, directly advising the President and Presidential Cabinet members on direction and development for the University. Mike has spoken in both their Chapel and their Executive Speaker Series for the Taylor School of Business. Mike also personally mentors Taylor University finance students in their career development.
Mike and his wife of 32 years, Danielle, have served in their church with youth teams and missions, scholarship development, facilities and services volunteers, security, music ministry, and discipleship ministry and training. They belong to several community development organizations and are actively involved in a wide variety of volunteer service programs in Northwest Ohio and nationally as well.
Eddie Thompson Board Member
Eddie founded the unique Thompson & Associates process in 1996. As CEO of Thompson & Associates, Eddie provides leadership and direction to around 30 seasoned charitable estate planners with an inspiring sense of generosity, integrity and passion for helping others.
By creating a unique values-based model at Thompson & Associates, Eddie and his team have established a way for people to dedicate the necessary time to consider important life decisions and to engage in thoughtful discussion that leads to optimal results for all.
He has planned thousands of estates, which has generated billions of dollars to charity during his thirty plus years working with nonprofits. Eddie speaks to organizations from coast to coast on successful fundraising techniques, nonprofit management and charitable estate planning and has garnered many honors during his distinguished career. He credits his parents with shaping his personal and professional path; they were very poor, but very generous.
Eddie serves as the Chair of the Charitable Estate Planning Institute, a 501(c)(3) public charity offering top level education on charitable estate planning for development staff, gift planning officers and professional advisors. Eddie and a group of Thompson & Associates colleagues formed the Institute in 2012. He is also a Fellow in Charitable Estate Planning (FCEP) awarded by the Institute.
A native of Florida, Eddie and his wife, Sheryl, have been married more than 50 years and have made Nashville their home. They have two sons, one daughter and four grandchildren. Eddie and his family are involved in many community organizations and their church. He was an active instrument pilot with both land and seaplane ratings but has since retired from flying preferring to enjoy life on his farm with the grandkids.
Emil Kallina General Counsel
Emanuel “Emil” J. Kallina, II was educated at Bowdoin College (BA), the University of Maryland School of Law (J.D.), and New York University School of Law (LL.M. in Taxation). He is licensed to practice law in Maryland and the District of Columbia and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the U.S. District Court of Maryland, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Tax Court.
Emil is the managing member of Kallina & Associates, LLC. He works extensively with tax-exempt and governance issues facing charities and charitable vehicles such as the pooled income fund, charitable lead and remainder trusts, donor-advised funds, supporting organizations, and private foundations. While Emil currently focuses his practice on estate and charitable planning for high-net-worth individuals, he has practiced extensively over the years in the related fields of business law, corporate tax law, partnerships, and real estate.
Emil is the founder of CharitablePlanning.com, a website dedicated to professionals who need the tools to complete planned and major gifts. He is also a co-founder of the Planned Giving Design Center (www.pgdc.com), a former member of the Board of Directors (and former Chair) of K-Love Radio (Educational Media Foundation), Search Ministries, Inc., the American Council on Gift Annuities, the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners (formerly, PPP and NPCG), former Chairman (5 years) of the Government Relations Committee of the NACGP, and a co-founder of the Chesapeake Planned Giving Council. In 2022, Emil was inducted into the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners Hall of Fame.
Emil has testified multiple times before the IRS on pending regulatory matters and has worked extensively with the staff of the various Congressional committees on charitable legislation.
Emil is a nationally recognized speaker on estate planning and charitable giving and a frequent author on these topics.
Emanuel J. Kallina, II, J.D., LL.M.
Kallina & Associates, LLC
7801 York Road, Ste 230
Towson, MD 21204
(410) 377-2170
ejk@kallinalaw.com
