An estimate of what you could put to work now without compromising the life and commitments you want to protect.
Test recurring gifts instead.
Everything is in today's dollars. Returns are simulated with a fixed seed. Investment buckets share the same annual market shock; this is not a diversification model.
For each path, the model approximates the smallest starting investment balance that funds spending through the plan and finishes above the minimum. Enough is that investment requirement plus the personal assets entered. Personal assets are counted in ending wealth but are not sold for spending or giving.
Annual giving tests the fixed real gift and duration you choose. Success means every planned gift and spending need is funded and ending wealth clears the minimum.
Gifts are modeled as proportional reductions in investment wealth. Taxes or transaction costs caused by funding a gift are not modeled, and no asset, account, or giving vehicle is prescribed.
Modeled spending draws from after-tax dividends, taxable sales, pre-tax retirement accounts, then private investments. This is a simplifying drawdown convention, not tax advice.
Gifts reduce investment wealth dollar for dollar and are removed proportionally across holdings, which is an abstraction rather than advice about which asset to sell. Funding a gift with appreciated securities avoids the embedded capital gain, so no tax is charged on the gift itself. The income-tax deduction a gift generates is not modelled unless you set a value for it under Assumptions, and the ceiling on deductions as a share of income is not modelled at all. Left at zero, the tool therefore understates giving capacity.
The end minimum applies to investments. Personal assets are counted in your wealth and are never sold to fund giving, but they do not satisfy the minimum. Both figures are before estate tax.