There’s not a lot of thought put into using acronyms. The only time we notice them is when we don’t know what the letters stand for. In fact, that’s the whole point of them; to make things easier, and streamline our conversations.

That’s exactly what the 3 letters R-M-D can do for your conversations with donors. RMD stands for Required Minimum Distribution and is a mandatory IRS guideline for anyone over the age of 70½ with any kind of IRA that has been accepting “qualified contributions.” This means that once a year, retirees who aren’t yet drawing income from their retirement accounts have a lump-sum distribution, generally in cash, they weren’t planning on taking. Asking what they plan on doing with their RMD is an easy way to start a conversation about annual gifts to your charity!

For more information about RMDs, check out this article.