Remembering his Roots

John Beliveau and his family take their philanthropy on the road to help alleviate food insecurity

MaineCF: John, I understand that you are actively involved in a community effort in rural Maine.  Could you tell us about this?

John Beliveau: Yes, I am very excited about a project that my family has been working on in the Rumford area in conjunction with the RSU 10 food program. We recently purchased a food delivery van for the district that will be used as a mobile delivery unit to bring food to families and children who are experiencing food insecurity. They may not have a car and there is very little public transportation in rural Maine. Being able to develop six or eight different sites around the community to deliver food allows this program to reach out to the community rather than having the community come to one centralized location at the school.

At the start of the COVID-19 shutdown, RSU 10 began delivering even more bagged meals from its three production kitchens. Additional vans that usually transport students have joined the Nutrition Van outreach effort.

MaineCF:  What is your connection to Rumford?

Beliveau: Our family has four generations going back to Rumford. We have provided some additional funding along with others with ties to the Rumford area, including the Jean and Shelton Noyes Fund. The plan is to be able to deliver up to possibly 2,000 meals a week to families and their children. The community seems to be very interested in it, and as other organizations such as Full Plates Full Potential and MaineCF learn about the issue, it’s bringing awareness to the difficulties of dealing with hunger issues in rural Maine.

MaineCF: You mentioned that this is one way you are involved in the community. What other types of activities are you involved in?

Beliveau: I am also actively involved in board activities with Portland Community Squash, Maine Huts & Trails, and the Maine Public Employees Retirement System. I have really focused on helping children and protecting the environment and outdoors. For example, Portland Community Squash uses squash along with a mentorship program and academic tutoring program to encourage underserved youth to have the aspirations to continue their education beyond high school.

MaineCF: On the professional side of what you do, what sort of conversations do you have with your clients about philanthropy?

At H.M. Payson we have a comprehensive financial planning group and how philanthropy fits into a client's financial plan is very important. The conversations start with gaining an understanding of the rank order of the client’s financial priorities. Most often, as you would expect, financial security for themselves and their families comes first. However, increasingly with a lot of clients, charitable giving is becoming a higher and higher priority both during their lifetime and through their estate. Once we know they have an interest in giving, we start looking at the most efficient means for making those charitable gifts.

MaineCF: When you say the most efficient means, are you talking about looking at the different types of assets they can give?

Beliveau: Both the different types of assets they own and their specific circumstances. For lifetime gifts, we need to know whether they claim the standard deduction or if they itemize their deductions. If they do not have enough deductions to itemize, we may discuss bunching their charitable donation in one year into a donor-advised fund. If they are over age 70 ½ and have IRA assets, we may discuss making a qualified charitable distribution. Both of these strategies are very tax efficient. If giving through their estate, we increasingly recommend that clients use their beneficiary designation on a part or all of their IRA as the most tax-efficient way to give to charity and leave a legacy.

MaineCF:  Is there anything you'd like to share with other professional advisors about your experiences with the Maine Community Foundation or how MaineCF can be a resource for them?

Beliveau: Because MaineCF is so tied to the entire state, it can be a tremendous resource and information source for people who really want to have their philanthropy dedicated to entities throughout the state. I just started my donor-advised fund at the Maine Community Foundation after talking to your staff and others about what resources MaineCF for someone like me who is trying to help less fortunate people in rural Maine. In fact, we recently had a client who had a similar interest and wanted to increase their philanthropy in a strategic way. In conversations with foundation my client and I were able to have a really great dialogue about what's the most tax-efficient way to fund it and, once the donor-advised fund gets funded, how they can use MaineCF resources to make their philanthropy targeted to their focus on Western Maine and some central Maine counties as well.

I would certainly encourage other advisors to work with MaineCF to go down that same path because sometimes what you don't know is really important and MaineCF can help fill those gaps.

John Beliveau is a managing director and portfolio manager at H.M. Payson in Portland, where he has worked since 1999. He earned his BA from Saint Anselm College and his MBA from the University of Oregon.

Photo: John Beliveau with RSU 10 nutrition director, Jeanne Lapointe, left, and Deb Alden, the superintendent of schools, and their food delivery van at Mountain Valley High School. Photo Russ Dillingham