Helping local organizations sustain and grow

Designated Fund

Establishing a Designated Fund allows you to support the good work of a specific nonprofit organization. Because it’s given through your community foundation, your gift provides the organization you select not only funding, but planned giving and investment management services and the power of endowment.

How it works

You identify an organization that you wish to benefit.
You make a gift to the Community Foundation — you can give cash, appreciated stocks, real estate, or other assets.
We set up a special fund, with a gift of $10,000 or more, (payable over four years), in your name or in the name of the nonprofit organization you choose.
You receive tax benefits in the year your gift is made.
Our board issues grants to the designated nonprofit organization.
We handle all the administrative details, including managing specific qualifications that you may establish for grant disbursements.
You receive updates on the impact the fund is making.
Your gift can be placed into an endowment that is invested over time. Earnings from your fund are used to make grants addressing community needs. Your gift — and all future earnings from your gift — is a permanent source of community capital, helping to do good work forever.

A source of strength and stability

Three times a week, Wendell Pittman delivers meals to homebound senior citizens as a volunteer for Meals for Seniors. While the organization has benefited from volunteerism and community recognition for over a decade, it depended largely on small donations and lacked a more predictable funding source. “Our organization needed more reliable funding, but we had trouble accepting large or complex gifts,” says Mary Lynch, Meals for Seniors’ executive director. After talking with Mary and with his financial advisor, Wendell decided to begin a Designated Fund with his local community foundation. He donated a piece of rental property that was becoming a bother in his retirement. The community foundation immediately sold the property and established the Meals for Seniors Fund. Thanks to this fund, other donors can contribute assets of a variety of types and sizes. “We’re thrilled to be working with our community foundation,” says Mary. “Meals for Seniors would not have been able to do this on its own.”