Accreditation is required for all NAD Planned Giving & Trust Service (PGTS) organizations who are actively promoting planned giving, educating members in planned giving techniques, and involved in discretionary or fiduciary (definitions below) planned giving activities. One requirement for accreditation is all employees performing these discretionary and fiduciary tasks must be certified. At its April 2018 meeting the NAD PGTS Standing Committee (Standing Committee) voted a revised policy for Certification, here is a link to the new policy which can be found on page 4 of the pdf, and here is a link to a summary of the policy.
Over the years many individual’s have had questions about the status of their Certification, the policy changes seek to provide guidance for most of these questions. Much of what was voted by the Standing Committee has not changed so I will only focus on the changes. You may read the complete policy at the link above.
For all who have been Certified by the NAD PGTS Certification and Accreditation Committee (C&A Committee) to perform Planned Giving & Trust Services duties there are now four certification classifications. The four classifications are Active, Inactive, Lapsed, and Revoked.
Active Certification
Active Certification is essentially what has simply been known in the past as Certification, or someone who is authorized by the Standing Committee to perform Planned Giving & Trust Services duties and has kept up with their Continuing Professional Education.
Please note the Standing Committee did make the following changes to the certification process.
If a person successfully completes the NAD Certification Course but does not complete the remaining requirements to become certified by the C&A Committee within three years the individual must retake, and successfully complete, the Certification Course again. This three-year expiration date on the Certification Course does not negate the policy requiring a person to become certified within 12 months of commencing to perform discretionary or fiduciary tasks. In addition, it should be noted that after the first 12 months of initial PGTS employment, if someone is not yet certified they are outside of NAD Working Policy and should discontinue performing discretionary tasks until they are certified by the C&A Committee.
When someone is certified by the C&A Committee in the first six months of the calendar year they are required to complete 16 Continuing Professional Education (CPE) starting that same calendar year. When someone is certified by the C&A Committee in the last six months of the calendar year they are not required to complete 16 CPE until the next calendar year after they are certified.
All CPE must be reported through the PGTS portal each calendar year. There is a provision allowing for deficiencies in required CPE to be made up. In the next calendar year you must first complete the 16 CPE for that current year and then you may make up the completed hours short from the previous year. If you have a CPE deficiency from the previous year and remain employed by an accredited PGTS organization, you remain actively certified.
Inactive Certification
Your employment may change while you have an Active Certification and no longer work for an accredited SDA organization. Or, you may still work for an accredited organization but are no longer actively involved in performing PGTS duties. If your employment status changes to one of these two situations and you continue to complete 16 CPE annually while also attending the NAD and Union PGTS Conferences your Certification will be designated as Inactive. Your Inactive Certification may be returned to Active Certification by notifying the NAD PGTS Department that you are now employed by an accredited organization and performing PGTS duties.
Lapsed Certification
When a person with an Active or Inactive Certification has not completed their annually required 16 CPE credits along with any deficient CPE from the previous year their Active Certification will become a Lapsed Certification. Once someone’s Certification is Lapsed they may not perform any discretionary or fiduciary tasks, they may only perform ministerial duties (defined below) until their Certification becomes Active again.
Those whose Certification became lapsed while employed by an accredited organization and engaging in PGTS duties must complete the required CPE for the current calendar year and all their deficient CPE to reactivate their Certification.
Those whose Certification became Lapsed while they were not employed by an accredited organization, or were employed by an accredited organization but not engaging in PGTS duties, must return to employment with an accredited organization for the purpose of performing PGTS duties and complete 16 hours of CPE before reactivating their Certification and then complete another 16 CPE for the calendar year they became Actively Certified.
Revoked Certification
After a person’s Certification status is Lapsed for three full calendar years, their Certification will become Revoked. Anyone with a Revoked Certification who wishes to become Active again is required to do the following; retake and satisfactorily complete the online Planned Giving & Trust Services Certification Course, and complete eight (8) hours of orientation in a Level A Accredited organization other than their own employing organization. Those who have previously held Active Certification is not required to participate in the live review at the end of the Certification course or retake the Certification examination.
Notifications
Some may have already received notification of a CPE deficiency in connection with the CPE period ending December 31, 2017. The NAD PGTS Department will notify you, and your supervisor, when there is a CPE deficiency or change in your Certification status. This requires you to keep up-to-date your employment status and contact information through the NAD PGTS Portal. You may make these changes to the online portal 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The fact is, if we do not have current contact information we will not be able to successfully contact you. If the NAD PGTS Department is not able to contact you, this does not remove any of your responsibility to comply with all the Certification policy requirements. For any classification that requires personnel to discontinue all discretionary tasks their organization’s administration will also be notified.
All of the NAD PGTS department employees are here to serve you. As always if you have any questions concerning any of these working policies and guidelines please contact our office at [email protected] or 301-680-5002.
Definitions
Discretionary – From the word discretion, which can be used to mean “the right to decide something based on one’s own judgment.” If you’re given a task to complete at your discretion, you can decide how you want to do it — or whether you want to do it at all. Discretionary means it is up to you to decide.
Fiduciary – An individual in whom another has placed the utmost trust and confidence to manage and protect property or money. The relationship wherein one person has an obligation to act for another’s benefit.
Ministerial duty – Refers to the official duty of an employee wherein the employee has no room for the exercise of discretion, and the performance being required by direct and positive command of a qualified individual. The powers and duties of employees are, in general, classified as ministerial or discretionary. Filling out a form under the direction of a lawyer is a ministerial task performed by a legal secretary when the lawyer takes full responsibility for the completed form.