Patrick Schmitt & Simone Kovacs

What Is a Qualified Charitable Distribution?

Right now, Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) from IRA accounts are the fastest growing area of philanthropy. From 2017 to 2019, nonprofits saw an almost 3X growth in the number of QCD gifts they received from donors.

Patrick Schmitt & Simone Kovacs

Patrick Schmitt

Co-Founder,
FreeWill

Patrick Schmitt is a leading innovator in the field of fundraising and social impact. From 2009-2010, Patrick ran email fundraising for President Obama, where his team invented many of the existing best practices in digital fundraising. He served as Head of Innovation at Change.org, helping to grow that organization to 200 million members in just four years.

Patrick is the co-founder of FreeWill, a social venture which has helped organizations raise more than $1.5B in new planned gifts and qualified charitable distributions. Patrick and his co-founder Jenny were recently named two of the Top 50 Philanthropists in the World by Town & Country.

Patrick received his Bachelors of Science from Georgetown University and an MBA from Stanford University.

Simone Kovacs

Editorial Lead,
FreeWill

Simone Kovacs is the Editorial Lead at FreeWill. She has extensive experience launching and running blogs, improving SEO, and building out marketing campaigns.

Prior to FreeWill, she ran digital and content marketing at retail start-up, Fourpost, and freelance video production company, Storyhunter.

Simone received her BA from Harvard University and her MFA from New York University.

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Articles by Patrick Schmitt & Simone Kovacs